For Ann with thanks Make like a satellite and stick around Text copyright 2016 by Karen Romano Young All rights reserved International copyright secured No part of this book may be reproduced stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic mechanical photocopying recording or otherwise without the prior written permission of Lerner Publishing Group Inc except for the inclusion of brief quotations in an acknowledged review Twenty-First Century Books A division of Lerner Publishing Group Inc 241 First Avenue North Minneapolis MN 55401 USA For reading levels and more information look up this title at www lernerbooks com Main body text set in Adrianna 10 16 Typeface provided by Chank Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Young Karen Romano author Space junk the dangers of polluting earth’s orbit Karen Romano Young pages cm Summary This book examines the proliferation of space debris in outer space and discusses methods of retrieving and disposing of the material Provided by publisher Audience Ages 12 18 Audience Grades 9 to 12 Includes bibliographical references and index ISBN 978-1-4677-5600-6 lb alk paper ISBN 978-1-4677-8806-9 eb pdf 1 Space debris Juvenile literature 2 Space pollution Juvenile literature I Title TL1499 Y68 2016 629 4'16 dc23 2015013396 Manufactured in the United States of America 1 VP 12 31 15
CONTENTS 1 Zombies in Space 2 Death and Destruction 3 Space-Traffic Control 4 Taking Out the Trash Timeline Source Notes Glossary Selected Bibliography Further Information Index 6 20 30 40 52 54 55 58 60 62
Since the late 1950s humans have launched thousands of objects into space Some of them like these Japanese craft shown in an artist’s rendering entering the atmosphere over South Australia are designed to return to Earth Others will drift in space until gravity and other forces pull them down 1 ZOMBIES IN SPACE If we don’t change the way we operate in space all this results in an exponentially increasing amount of debris until all objects are reduced to a cloud of orbiting fragments that are capable of destroying any spacecraft that attempts to operate anywhere within that cloud Donald Kessler astrophysicist 2014 On February 10 2009 high above Earth two satellites slammed into each other Both satellites were traveling at nearly 17,000 miles 27,350 kilometers per hour when they crashed One of the satellites US communications satellite Iridium 33 had been going about its business As it orbited Earth 490 miles 790 km above the ground it relayed signals from one cell phone to another With no warning another satellite came barreling out of the dark Cosmos 2251 a Russian communications satellite had been launched into space in 1993 and had stopped operating two 6
years later Unlike operational satellites Cosmos was no longer under the control of people on Earth It was orbiting on its own circling Earth the same way Earth and the other planets circle the sun Drifting off its original course Cosmos sped into Iridium s path High above Siberia part of northern Russia the two spacecraft slammed into each other smashing each other to smithereens The two spacecraft broke apart into more than twenty-one hundred shards of metal glass plastic and paint which blasted out from the collision in every direction Satellites operated by Iridium Communications in Virginia relay signals from one cell phone on Earth to another In 2009 a Russian zombie satellite a satellite that is no longer functioning or controlled by people on Earth smashed into an Iridium satellite The two spacecraft broke apart into hundreds of pieces of metal plastic glass and paint Many Iridium customers lost phone service after the crash Most of this material is still orbiting Earth And each piece from fingernail-sized chips of paint to chunks of metal as big as a human head has the potential to strike and damage other spacecraft Eventually through orbital decay objects orbiting Earth will slow down and drop into the atmosphere the layer of gases surrounding the planet Most of these objects will burn up and disintegrate high in the air but some pieces of debris could hit the ground possibly hurting people animals or buildings FROM SATELLITES TO SPACE JUNK Since the late 1950s humans have launched more than sixty-six hundred satellites into space Some of these craft are as small as shoe boxes Others are as big as school buses Rockets carry them into space and then release them into orbit Each satellite is designed to do a specific job Some satellites 7
