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Mahesh

17/05/22 21:40 PM IST

Space Debris

In News 
  • Recently,villagers in Gujarat remained confused and curious as fragments of suspected debris “fell from space” at three locations — Bhalej, Khambholaj, and Rampura.
Space Debris
  • Space debris can include natural space debris such as meteoroids, or man-made ones which can include defunct spacecrafts and satellites, stages of rockets which have launched payloads, dead satellites, satellite explosions and collisions.
  • According to NASA, “more than 25,000 objects larger than 10 cm are known to exist” as space debris and the estimated population of particles between 1 and 10 cm in diameter is approximately 500,000.
  • According to NASA’s estimates, as of January 2022, the amount of material orbiting the Earth exceeded 9,000 metric tons.
Chang Zheng 3B
  • Chang Zheng 3B, commonly known as CZ 3B, is China’s orbital launch vehicle, similar to India’s GSLV or PSLV.
  • The third stage, which releases the satellite at the required orbit following which it remains in sub-orbital flight, remains outside the purview of being controlled by human intervention and ultimately re-enters earth.
  • It is this third stage of the Long March 3B Y 86 rocket launch that is now suspected to have re-entered earth, leading to debris falling in Gujarat.
Technology that can tackle Space Debris 
  • Nasa’s Space Debris Sensor orbits the Earth on the International Space Station. REMOVEdebris, satellite contain two cubesats that will release simulated space debris so that it can then demonstrate several ways of retrieving them.
  • Deorbit mission: There are two emerging technologies being developed under what’s known as the e.Deorbit mission to grasp the wayward space junk, or to catch it.
  • Other technologies include moving objects with a powerful laser beam. It is important to start doing that soon, current scientific estimates predict that without active debris removal, certain orbits will become unusable over the coming decades.
Source-Indian Express 

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