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Waste In Space Is A Puzzle With Millions Of Pieces

There are something on the order of 12,000 to 15,000 pieces of space debris larger than the size of a softball orbiting the Earth.
NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory
There are something on the order of 12,000 to 15,000 pieces of space debris larger than the size of a softball orbiting the Earth.

Space debris probably isn’t at the top of your list of day-to-day concerns.

The junk we’ve left floating around in space includes everything from spent rocket stages and old satellites, to nuts and bolts ― even tiny flecks of paint.

And it’s constantly colliding with satellites and anything else in what's known as “low Earth orbit,” including the International Space Station.

There are something on the order of 12,000 to 15,000 pieces of space debris larger than the size of a softball orbiting the Earth.
Credit NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory
There are something on the order of 12,000 to 15,000 pieces of space debris larger than the size of a softball orbiting the Earth.

Missouri University of Science and Technology engineering professor William Schonberg has been studying space debris for about 25 years.

And there’s a lot of it.

"There are about 12,000 to 15,000 pieces of material that I would say are softball size and larger," Schonberg said. "Once you get down to the smaller and tinier nuts and bolts and wires, you can easily consider it to have millions of pieces.”

The U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) tracks space debris as it orbits the Earth.
Credit NASA
The U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) tracks space debris as it orbits the Earth.

All that junk is hurtling around the Earth at an average velocity of about six miles per second. Exactly how fast is that?

“Let’s say you want to go from St. Louis to Chicago. That’s about 300 miles,” Schonberg said. “Three-hundred divided by six is 50. So, it would take you 50 seconds to go from St. Louis to Chicago. So, that’s pretty fast!”

Schonberg said cleaning up all the fast-moving space debris would be prohibitively expensive.

The best we can do is try to avoid it and to design spacecraft that can withstand its impacts.

Schonberg is speaking about the dangers of space debris on Wednesday from 7:30 to 9:00 p.m. in The Living World at Saint Louis Zoo. His talk is co-sponsored by the zoo and the Academy of Science of St. Louis.

Want a preview of some of the issues he’ll be talking about? Listen to my interview with Schonberg, here:

Follow Véronique LaCapra on Twitter: @KWMUScience

Copyright 2021 St. Louis Public Radio. To see more, visit St. Louis Public Radio.

Véronique LaCapra first caught the radio bug while writing commentaries for NPR affiliate WAMU in Washington, D.C. After producing her first audio pieces at the Duke Center for Documentary Studies in N.C., she was hooked! She has done ecological research in the Brazilian Pantanal; regulated pesticides for the Environmental Protection Agency in Arlington, Va.; been a freelance writer and volunteer in South Africa; and contributed radio features to the Voice of America in Washington, D.C. She earned a Ph.D. in ecosystem ecology from the University of California in Santa Barbara, and a B.A. in environmental policy and biology from Cornell. LaCapra grew up in Cambridge, Mass., and in her mother’s home town of Auxerre, France.
Véronique LaCapra
Science reporter Véronique LaCapra first caught the radio bug writing commentaries for NPR affiliate WAMU in Washington, D.C. After producing her first audio documentaries at the Duke Center for Documentary Studies in N.C., she was hooked! She has done ecological research in the Brazilian Pantanal; regulated pesticides for the Environmental Protection Agency in Arlington, Va.; been a freelance writer and volunteer in South Africa; and contributed radio features to the Voice of America in Washington, D.C. She earned a Ph.D. in ecosystem ecology from the University of California in Santa Barbara, and a B.A. in environmental policy and biology from Cornell. LaCapra grew up in Cambridge, Mass., and in her mother’s home town of Auxerre, France. LeCapra reported for St. Louis Public Radio from 2010 to 2016.