Kessler Syndrome (Back to the past)
Kessler Syndrome (Surrounded Earth)
𝗜𝗻𝗱𝗲𝘅:
⏲ 0:00 Number of satellites
⏲ 0:18 Orbital debris
⏲ 0:39 Kessler Syndrome (Kessler Effect)
⏲ 1:18 Number and size of orbital debris
⏲ 1:50 Threats of orbital debris
⏲ 2:46 The worst scenario
⏲ 3:15 Solution ideas for space debris
📫𝐎𝐮𝐫 𝐅𝐁 𝐏𝐚𝐠𝐞:
/ scienceworld-106933907791981
🎬𝐈𝐦𝐚𝐠𝐞𝐬, 𝐚𝐧𝐢𝐦𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐯𝐢𝐝𝐞𝐨𝐬 𝐜𝐫𝐞𝐝𝐢𝐭𝐬:
Pexels
ESA
NASA
📚𝐃𝐚𝐯𝐢𝐝'𝐬 𝐁𝐨𝐨𝐤𝐬
📕 𝗪𝗲𝗶𝗿𝗱 𝗠𝗮𝘁𝗵𝘀: 𝗔𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗘𝗱𝗴𝗲 𝗼𝗳 𝗜𝗻𝗳𝗶𝗻𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗕𝗲𝘆𝗼𝗻𝗱
(https://www.amazon.com/Weird-Maths-Ag...)
📙 𝗪𝗲𝗶𝗿𝗱𝗲𝗿 𝗠𝗮𝘁𝗵𝘀: 𝗔𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗘𝗱𝗴𝗲 𝗼𝗳 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗣𝗼𝘀𝘀𝗶𝗯𝗹𝗲
(https://www.amazon.com/Weirder-Maths-...)
📗 𝗪𝗲𝗶𝗿𝗱𝗲𝘀𝘁 𝗠𝗮𝘁𝗵𝘀: 𝗔𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗙𝗿𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗲𝗿𝘀 𝗼𝗳 𝗥𝗲𝗮𝘀𝗼𝗻
(https://www.amazon.com/Weirdest-Maths...)
** The kindle versions are available
*** For more details : http://weirdmaths.com/
📄𝐓𝐞𝐱𝐭:
In 1957, the Soviet Union launched the world’s first satellite, Sputnik 1, into Earth orbit. 64 years later, there are about 3,400 active and almost 3,200 inactive satellites going around our planet. As well as derelict spacecraft, there’re also other kinds of man-made debris in orbit, including derelict fragments from the disintegration, erosion and collision of satellites, paint flecks, solidified liquids expelled from spacecraft, and unburned particles from solid rocket motors.
In 1978, NASA scientist Donald Kessler predicted that space debris would collide with each other, break up into smaller pieces, and cause a chain of events that would eventually surround Earth with a cloud of debris. As a result, no vehicle could be sent into space and existing satellites would be destroyed through collision with the debris fragments. Kessler predicted that the cloud which would envelop the world for generations, rendering space studies and satellite technology useless for the foreseeable future. This idea is called the Kessler effect or Kessler syndrome.
In 2019, the US Space Surveillance Network reported about 20,000 artificial objects in Earth orbit, including satellites. However, these are just the objects large enough to be tracked. According to estimates, there are more than 128 million pieces of debris smaller than 1 cm, about 900,000 pieces between 1 and 10 cm, and around 34,000 pieces larger than 10 cm.
You may wonder how a 1-cm piece of debris could pose any kind of threat . The problem is the speed at which it moves. In low Earth orbit, objects are travelling at about 28,000 km or 17,500 miles per hour – roughly 10 times faster than a bullet. In 2016, it’s thought that a paint flake or small metal fragment, no bigger than a few thousandths of a millimeter across, hit the International Space Station’s improved 4-layered window and caused this damage. An object up to 1 cm in size could disable an instrument or a critical flight system on a satellite. Anything above 1 cm could penetrate shielding, and anything larger than 10 cm could shatter a satellite or other spacecraft into pieces.
So, should we worry about the Kessler effect? If Kessler turned out to be right, we wouldn’t be able to use satellites that provide fast Internet, TV broadcasts, navigation, weather, time synchronization, environmental monitoring, safety and national security, space science and so on. If we lost all satellites, we’d be back to the situation of the 1960s and it would stay that way for a very long time. To address the problem and help clean up the debris in Earth orbit, various projects have been proposed. One of the most promising is Clearspace-1. The idea is to launch a spacecraft that would capture inactive satellites using robotic tentacles. After a capture was made, the pair would dive into Earth’s atmosphere and safely burn up. If everything goes as planned, ClearSpace-1 will launch in 2025 – and help to make space safe for future generations.
#kessler #syndrome #effect