By: Amelia Xiao

On June 26 near the International Space Station (ISS), an old Russian satellite (RESURS-P1 #39186) broke apart in orbit. This break resulted in more than 100 pieces of trackable debris. NASA’s Space Station office says 6 U.S. astronauts aboard the ISS had to shelter for about an hour. Luckily, not long after the incident, the astronauts were able to continue with their normal work.

The satellite’s breakup was estimated to be 220 miles above Earth. The area is a popular place where thousands of small to large satellites operate. Some of which include SpaceX’s Starlink network and China’s Tiangong space station.

Many satellites orbiting play an important role to things used on Earth, like internet use and navigation services. There are also currently many satellites in space that aren’t being used anymore. They are known as ‘space junk’. It is estimated that there are around 25,000 pieces of debris larger than four inches, in space caused by satellite explosions or collisions. There have been multiple concerns about the problems these pieces of debris could potentially cause in the future.

Often, dead satellites remain in orbit until they fall down to Earth’s atmosphere many many years later. They are usually burned up in the process due to the heat from the friction in the air. In infrequent conditions, some may fly far from Earth into deep space. Small pieces of debris may damage important parts of other satellites, like solar panels. US space-tracking company LeoLabs states about the Russian satellite , “Due to the low orbit of this debris cloud, we estimate it’ll be weeks to months before the hazard has passed.”