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Most people don’t realise that space junk didn’t start as trash, it’s mostly leftover bits from decades-old satellites, rocket parts, and explosions from the early space race. Some fragments come from missions so old that the engineers who launched them never imagined their creations would still be orbiting Earth as hazards today. Even tiny bits can travel over 28,000 km/h, fast enough to pierce satellites or the International Space Station, turning “harmless debris” into potential disasters. In a way, space is like a high-speed time capsule of human technology, with every orbiting fragment telling a story of exploration.
Busting the Myths About Orbital Debris
The Journey of a Junked Satellite
A piece of space junk usually starts its journey as part of a rocket, satellite, or other spacecraft launched from Earth. During the launch, it rides a rocket into orbit, and sometimes parts are intentionally discarded, like spent rocket stages, or accidentally break off. Once in orbit, it travels at incredible speeds, circling the Earth thousands of times a year. Over time, it can collide with other debris or satellites, creating even more fragments that join the chaotic dance. Depending on its orbit, it might slowly spiral back to Earth, burning up in the atmosphere, or it could stay floating for decades, contributing to the ever-growing cloud of space junk.
Infamous Space Junk Events
One of the most infamous space junk events was the 2009 collision between the active Iridium 33 satellite and the defunct Russian satellite Kosmos-2251, which smashed into each other at over 42,000 km/h and created more than 2,000 trackable debris pieces, many still orbiting Earth. In 2007, China conducted an anti-satellite test that deliberately destroyed an old weather satellite, producing over 3,000 pieces of large debris and tens of thousands of smaller fragments, instantly making China the biggest contributor to space junk at the time. Even smaller events add up, such as old rocket stages exploding or satellites breaking apart from leftover fuel, continuously releasing thousands of fragments into orbit, showing why space junk has become a serious risk to satellites and the International Space Station. Some debris remains in orbit for decades, traveling at incredible speeds and making routine space missions more dangerous, while also increasing the likelihood of accidental collisions that generate even more fragments.
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