By: Sammy Wang

On Wednesday, June 26, 2024, at around 10 a.m Mountain Time(1600 GMT), a decommissioned Russian satellite broke into more than 100 pieces, joining the space junk orbit. The breakdown of the satellite is still unknown for now.

On Thursday, an announcement made by the U.S Space Command, a defensive department that sends out military operations in space, assured that there were “no immediate threats,” from the satellite and they were still investigating the situation.

Space junk or space debris are essentially human-made objects because they were sent into space that no longer serves a purpose. Space debris can include spacecraft, machinery, or dead satellites.

Space debris orbits the Earth until it can enter the atmosphere, so as of now, there are around 5,000 satellites hovering around the Earth. 2,000 active, and 3,000 dead. Add to that 34,000 pieces of space debris around 10 centimeters in size, which can cause problems for active satellites. Also there is a chance, even if it’s rare, of debris colliding with a working satellite.

Kessler syndrome is a theory proposed by NASA scientist Donald Kessler, who says that if there is too much space junk surrounding Earth, those objects will collide with each other creating bigger space junk.

However, on Thursday afternoon, the U.S Space Command was able to track down where exactly the pieces went.

So, for now, those 100+ pieces are nowhere near being a threat for the people on Earth and active satellites.

Sources:
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/science/russian-satellite-breaks-up-into-100-pieces-here-is-what-it-means-for-boeing-and-sunita-williams-space-project/articleshow/111358216.cms?from=mdr
https://www.yahoo.com/news/could-more-space-junk-fall-211918778.html
https://www.reuters.com/technology/space/russian-satellite-blasts-debris-space-forces-iss-astronauts-shelter-2024-06-27/
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/27/science/russian-satellite-debris-iss.html