The Chinese Long March 5B rocket that hurtled above our heads this Friday - although it ended up, as all probabilities indicated, crashing into the sea - reminded the world of the problem of space debris. An issue that broke records this summer, reaching the figure of 10,000 tons of waste floating around us. But what are all those objects? Where do they come from? And, most importantly, will they 'rain' us from the sky at some point, like some kind of space debris storm? Since the USSR launched the first satellite into space - the mythical Sputnik -, some 6,250 rockets have been launched into space, most of them with non-reusable parts that have been left wandering uncontrolled through space. Many of these pieces, especially in missions in low orbit (those that do not reach beyond 2,000 kilometers from the Earth's surface and which is the 'dirtiest' neighborhood of our piece of near space), fall back to the Earth, usually being disintegrated by the collision with the atmosphere. "Every year, more than 100 tons of space debris reenter the atmosphere," Alberto Águeda, head of space surveillance at GMV, a Spanish company that is a world reference in the study, monitoring and prevention of the proliferation of space debris, explains to ABC. . "80% of the total corresponds to remains of launchers." It is true that in recent years different efforts have been made to create reusable rockets (the most famous example is the Falcon series, from SpaceX, which is already being used in many launches). "However, there are still many stages of old rockets floating around from all nations, including the United States and Europe," says Águeda. Related News standard No The 23-ton Chinese rocket out of control crashes in the Pacific Judith de Jorge standard No Rush and ambition: the risks of the Chinese space race Jaime Santirso As the expert points out, in reality they will burn in the atmosphere is ideal: «The chances of them falling on populated centers are tiny. "It is more dangerous when they float for years and can cause collisions with other objects, including functioning satellites." 'Zombie' satellites Satellites are another of the main sources of space debris creation. According to ESA data, 13,630 satellites have been put into orbit since the 1950s, of which about 8,850 remain. Of them, only 6,700 work. The rest are space debris wandering through space. And they do not have to be a compact body: the same report from the European space agency points out that "more than 630 cases of breakages, explosions, collisions or anomalous events that have resulted in fragmentation" have been recorded. That is to say, from having a compact body it has become thousands of pieces, as happened after the controversial Russian anti-satellite test that took place at the end of last year and that put the International Space Station (ISS) at risk. "One of the problems, especially on the side of the launchers, is that they generally tend to carry a remainder of fuel and due to friction in the atmosphere, their temperature increases and they can end up exploding," César Arza, responsible for the launch, explains to ABC. of the mission analysis unit of the National Institute of Aerospace Technology (INTA). "So, a stage of a launcher is not only that, but the possibility of it disintegrating into thousands of small pieces that can in turn impact other bodies." If the orbit were heavily populated with space debris, the so-called 'Kessler syndrome' could occur, or a chain collision in which the impacts in turn caused new fragments also with the potential to continue colliding with other objects. . At 28,000 kilometers per second Considering the size, today it is known that 5,400 objects measuring one meter in diameter wander uncontrollably, accompanied by 34,000 that exceed 10 centimeters in length, 900,000 that are more than one centimeter in diameter, and more than 130 million that are more than 10 centimeters long. over a millimeter of wingspan. Among these small pieces are screws that can reach an acceleration of 28,000 kilometers per hour (or 7 kilometers per second) and pierce a satellite screen like butter. MORE INFORMATION news No They identify the highest volcanic column ever recorded news No A new threat to the Earth Despite this panorama, experts agree that we still have time to stop the most apocalyptic scenarios and, in fact, most of the Solutions are to re-enter all these objects so that they burn in the atmosphere. In the words of Águeda: «At the moment, it is an endemic disease. "We have to fight so that it does not become a pandemic."
