The European Space Agency has mastered the photographic technology necessary to reveal that Earth is super lousy at cleaning up after itself. Since Sputnik in 1957, more than 6,000 man-made objects have been rocketed into the sky. 85% of them are now useless junk loitering in our outer atmosphere. China..
The European Space Agency has mastered the photographic technology necessary to reveal that Earth is super lousy at cleaning up after itself. Since Sputnik in 1957, more than 6,000 man-made objects have been rocketed into the sky. 85% of them are now useless junk loitering in our outer atmosphere. China recently proceeded to increase the amount of space trash by 22% when they blasted a defunct weather satellite to smithereens, just to see what would happen. Doesn't take rocket scientists to see that wasn't the smartest move...
Not only does all this debris orbiting the planet make us look really bad next to our galactic neighbors, it poses a serious hazard to future space travel. At 4.5 miles per second, even a little fleck of paint can cause catastrophic damage to a vehicle. Imagine what would happen upon collision with a pop can some irresponsible astronaut just couldn't bother hanging on to until he saw the next recycling receptacle, or a wrench that someone left carelessly lyingaround because they forgot they were in a zero gravity environment. Taking that into account, we're being forced to totally reconsider that whole blasting-into-space- to-exchange-wedding-vows idea.
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