September 21, 2011 Space Junk

[CaliforniaMama]

Just how much junk do you think is floating out there in space?

You know me, I am so naive about such things. I thought there would be a little bit here and and a little bit there. Imagine my surprise when I saw this:


Low Earth orbit

And this:

High Earth orbit

But wait . . . Not all of this is space junk, or orbital debris, to be precise. These images show ALL man-made orbiting items over 10 cm, whether working or not.

To put it into perspective, this is ten centimeters:



As of July 2009, there were approximately 19,000 such objects in orbit. Most of these objects orbit close to the earth (top image). The lower image shows all the objects both in high and in low orbit.

via NASA Earth Observatory