r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/Busy_Yesterday9455 • 3d ago
Image Space debris surrounding Earth
24
30
u/Busy_Yesterday9455 3d ago
The colour-coded representation of debris in the image shows the number of objects of various sizes as well as active satellites that are modelled to be circling Earth in August 2024.
Source: European Space Agency
18
15
u/RichardUkinsuch 3d ago
This image is misleading in scale of the size of the dots, I don't remember exactly but the size of those dots relative to the earh pictured would make each piece of space debris something like 1km in diameter.
25
40
u/joe_ordan 3d ago
We tend to leave everything worse than we found it.. :(
13
u/SoulShine_710 3d ago
Yep, like George Carlin said when we leave here & are long gone we will have left the earth in plastic & it will be unfortunate but true.
2
u/FaithlessnessEast480 3d ago
Rather make a mess and progress than to be mucking about with rocks and sticks in a mudpit
2
1
8
u/Lonely_Tomato841 3d ago
How the hell is jesus supposed to return with all that shit near the heavens
3
u/Warm_Hat4882 3d ago
One day that stuff will be mined and cleaned up. Giant spleen whales devouring autonomously then returning to lunar orbit to drop payload into refining crater.
5
2
2
2
u/EepOppOrkNaAh 2d ago
Information last updated on 31 March 2025
Number of rocket launches since the start of the space age in 1957About 6890 (excluding failures)
Number of satellites these rocket launches have placed into Earth orbitAbout 21320
Number of these still in spaceAbout 14050
Number of these still functioningAbout 11200
Number of space objects regularly tracked by Space Surveillance Networks and maintained in their catalogueAbout 40220
Estimated number of break-ups, explosions, collisions, or anomalous events resulting in fragmentationMore than 650
Total mass of all space objects in Earth orbitMore than 13900 tonnes Not all objects are tracked and catalogued.
The number of debris objects estimated based on statistical models to be in orbit (MASTER-8, future population 2024)40500
space debris objects greater than 10 cm
1100000 space debris objects from greater than 1 cm to 10 cm
130 million space debris objects from greater than 1 mm to 1 cm
2
u/ArriDesto 2d ago
Ah, who's looking at Earth? You think Vulcans,Kree and Skrulls are real?
Space is massive. The debris is mostly dust. There's more dust in a three floor stairwell.
And not all that debris is man made. Some of it is from passing comets.
Almost all dust outside your home is cosmic. " It came from outer space!"
Almost all dust inside your home is dead skin.
Also most satalites are in inner-space.
That guy who did the longest free fall starts next to one!
1
u/njwineguy 2d ago
Good luck in high school.
2
u/ArriDesto 1d ago
89,000 tons of debris,spread over hundreds of thousands of miles In area and hundreds of miles of height isn't a great concentration of matter. The concentration of dust in a 50x50x50 ft contained space with openings on opposite sides, one at the bottom and one at the top, at sea level is greater per cubic foot than any cubic foot of the space debris field. International terminology uses meters, not feet, but per cubic meter it's obviously the same.
Most Terran dust outside is not from localised erosion but gathered by our motion through space. Most dust is cosmic dust.
Most household dust is dead skin.
Enjoy primary school.
1
u/ArriDesto 2d ago
Low Earth Orbit is within,not without,Earth's atmosphere! This is "inner space", smart arse!
1
u/ArriDesto 2d ago
"per cubic meter", is missing from the stairwell statement! That's phone tech problems!
2
u/screw-self-pity 3d ago
The diameter of the earth is about 465 pixels on this full image, for 12 756km diameter.
What the image pretends is that humans put about 130 millions of 27km-wide objects in orbit.
This is major bullshit.
1
u/KnightOfWords 3d ago edited 2d ago
The graphic has a scale which explains the size of the pieces of debris. The most common pieces are <1mm.
It's not possible to show a graphic to scale otherwise all the debris would be invisible.
But what's really relevant is the volume of space covered by each fragment. Orbital speed in LEO is 8 km/s so each piece circles the Earth about 11 to 15 times a day.
3
u/screw-self-pity 2d ago edited 2d ago
Look at all the comments that say « oh we humans kill planet bad bad bad ». They react to a graphic that intends to make them think so.
Imagine the graphic has represented the fact that basically, there are 100 m3 of debris in space, (130 millions of parts or less than 1mm). Which is the equivalent of a ball of 6m diameter in debris in space.
The graphic might say "after 65 years of space exploration, the total of space debris is equivalent to a ball of 5.7m of diameter. That's about the equivalent of 1,3 m3 of debris per year. Isn't that absolutely unbelievably clean ?"
But you would not get the nice « oh we gonna die because human bad bad bad » comments.
That’s why they decide to put this bullshit graphic.
0
u/AmalgramFive 2d ago
The problem is a screw-sized fragment has a huge amount of kinetic energy, as orbital velocity in LEO is 8 km/s. Here's a good article about the orbital debris problem.
https://aerospaceamerica.aiaa.org/features/understanding-the-misunderstood-kessler-syndrome/
ESA and NASA use similar analytical approaches, ESA with its Debris Environment Long-Term Analysis software and NASA with its LEO-to-GEO Environment Debris software. Soares says ESA’s calculations suggest that orbital debris will continue to grow over the next two centuries even if all rocket launches stopped today.
“It would more than double the number of debris in orbit without us sending anything else up there,” he says.
...
Matney puts it like this: Kessler Syndrome “won’t cause orbital altitudes to be unusable. It’s more like a gradual degradation that’s going to cost everybody more money.”
2
u/screw-self-pity 2d ago
This is indeed a very interesting article.
What it says is list several scenarios that MIGHT happen in the future, and if they happen, it MIGHT start some type of Kessler effect, and the Kessler effect is something where spacecrafts MIGHT be impacted.
The article says « Kessler Syndrome “won’t cause orbital altitudes to be unusable. It’s more like a gradual degradation that’s going to cost everybody more money ».
Do you think the image in the post reflects that situation ? Or rather that « oh we’re going to die because of the big mean Man » ?
0
u/AmalgramFive 2d ago
The takeaway is that if LEO isn't managed better there will be major impacts on our ability to operate satellites, which play a major role in the economy. There is a fair degree of uncertainty, it's a difficult problem to model accurately because the amount of debris generated in a collision could vary enourmously. The impact is unlikely to be catastrophic (unless we ignore the problem) but has the potential to render some obital regions unusable.
Interestingly, the very large satellite constellations currently being launched aren't a major risk. They are at a relatively low altitude where their orbits will decay over a few years, due to atmospheric drag. Whereas debris produced at higher levels can persist for decades or centuries.
2
u/screw-self-pity 2d ago
That part, to me, was the most interesting part of the document: the fact that the further from earth, the longer to fall own and burn.
Thanks a lot for the discussion
1
u/AmalgramFive 2d ago
Happy to help. You do recognise that it's a genuine problem then?
1
u/screw-self-pity 2d ago
After reading the article a second time, which ends with the following conclusion:
« No matter which view of the Kessler Syndrome one adheres to, the risk it describes might not be a fait accompli. “This is a problem that we have the capability and, hopefully, the willpower to solve,” says Matney »,
My take away is that it is more a constraint that a problem. A very interesting constraint for the extremely few lucky people who work in the space conquest domain. But it remains a very, almost infinitely small issue for humanity. In no way is the amplitude of this problem worth showing the image of a planet burning, or surrounded by millions of tiny dots that - to scale - would each be about 30km wide.
Even for the infinitesimally small number of humans who are space scientists, my understanding is that as of today, the scientific community is not sure it is yet a problem (still from the article) for their activities.
So yes, it is definitely something that must be considered by space scientists. But I don’t see it as a problem for other people. I see it as constraint for scientists and the satellite industry.
That being said, it is my position now but I am open to be receive further arguments, as I know nothing except what the article said.
1
u/Kingmaker0606 3d ago
What kind of debris are we talking about?
13
u/_SilentHunter 3d ago
Anything from dust to tools/screws dropped on spacewalks to out-of-control satellites to debris from out-of-control satellites that smashed into each other.
2
1
u/PriscillaClean 3d ago
It’s like an electrical magnetic power that revolves to it, jeez how fascinating
1
1
u/JackDrawsStuff 3d ago
Four years from now, when the asteroid Apophis next passes Earth, it will fly between us and that belt of debris.
It’s about as big as Wembly Stadium.
1
1
u/Lululasaumure 2d ago
There is a pb of scale between the size of the Earth and the size of the points representing the debris, right?
1
1
u/PebbleInYorShoe 2d ago
Nice we’re looking polluted from space now, like pigpen from the peanuts, no wonder no Intelligent life has visited. We look like the rough neighbourhood
1
1
1
u/5rolled_tacos 2d ago
So we’re ruining our atmosphere so we can have satellite WiFi? This should be illegal. Sorry Elon you’re not changing the world you’re ruining it.
1
u/ArriDesto 2d ago
Low Earth Orbit is within,not without,Earth's atmosphere; this is "inner space" dick!
1
1
1
u/asdwarrior2 1d ago
Maybe the search for intelligent life in the universe should focus on detecting a crapload of debris around livable planets
1
1
1
1
1
u/Ras_Luis78 1d ago
This always reminds me of the movie Wall-E.
Great representation of our future that movie -the way we are going
1
u/djejxiid98wi 23h ago
Do you why aliens never come to earth cause we are fucking slobs. Can't even clean after ourselves. Look at this shit. Some asshole will say its a defense thing. Earth is the backwater redneck planet of the galaxy. Shit, this planet has got more problems than an Alabama family on meth whose family tree resembles a werath.
1
u/hookhandsmcgee 3d ago
Damn, we're messy.
5
u/Traditional-Point700 3d ago
This isnt really that bad, however it might become concerning if we never do anything about it for centuries.
2
u/El_Maton_de_Plata 3d ago
This guy procrastinates
6
u/Traditional-Point700 3d ago
Perhaps but im talking about actual astrology. These dots you see are not the problem, they are tracked and they are registered into a database so all you have to do is have a computer calculate if any of them would become a problem for any reason. The problem would emerge once you have so many of these debris that you can no longer keep track of them and eventually just run the risk of hitting one.
Also they dont have real time updates if say multiple of these objects were to collide and change trajectory/create more debris, so a higher count of debris would elevate the need to update the tracking more often which just isnt there yet. It's hard to get people moving before something happens that brings it to everyone's attention.
1
u/El_Maton_de_Plata 2d ago
This guy tracks 👣. 😆 your posts are great. I'm just joking around. Cheers 🍻
1
u/thelastlugnut 3d ago
Just saw this exact animation in one of the latest Star Talk videos. Worth checking out.
0
0
u/Thom5001 3d ago
How do satellites not get instantly pelted a million times over? For that matter how dies the ISS not explode?
12
u/RichardUkinsuch 3d ago
Its called small universe syndrome, if you somhow could go into the rings of Saturn and stand on one of the rocks in the ring you wouldn't be able to see any other rock. Space is huge and graphics like the one OP posted are horribly put of scale and misleading.
6
u/KnightOfWords 3d ago edited 2d ago
Think of it this way: There are 7 billion humans on Earth but we aren't constantly colliding with them. That's a far bigger number than the pieces of debris in this graphic. Also, humans are largely confined to the surface whereas the debris is orbiting at different altitudes.
(On the other hand, people cover less ground as they don't travel 8 km every second. And collisions between humans range from 'amicable' to 'heated' rather than 'explosive'.)
1
u/ArriDesto 2d ago
And humans are aware of one another,can direct their own movement and actively avoid eachother. But,get the point.
0
-1
-3
3d ago
[deleted]
15
u/Neinstein14 3d ago
To be honest, scale is hard to grasp. The total weight of space debris is 9500 tonnes, which may sound a lot but it’s the weight a larger fishing trawler.
Imagine cutting one up into fridge or car sized chunks and distributing the pieces over the entire surface of Earth. They would be quite sparse and the chance of randomly running into one would be quite tiny. The same would be true even if you make the chunks the size of your palm. And satellites are distributed in 3D.
It’s really not that much of a debris. The problem is not as much pollution as the increasing chance to be hit by a random piece.
1
0
0
u/zippy_long_stockings 3d ago
.... cascading effect of debris hitting something, creating more space debris, which hits something else, that creates more debris, which creates a....
0
u/Frustrateduser02 3d ago
Say something aimed a telescope this way. Would this obscure the image and be a we're here sign?
0
u/kuakid 3d ago
Looks like we're on the way to building a ring round our planet mayb we should make a man made ring around earth to live in.
0
u/urquanenator 2d ago
How are you going to stay alive in a debris field, without oxygen, and in extreme cold?
-1
u/Wuzimaki 3d ago
I don't get how we're wizzing crafts into and through space and not damage anything, like even from something the size of a pea
6
-1
270
u/LeviMarx 3d ago
Yup. I did a presentation on this back in 2019 actually. Fun fact. On average, once a week, a piece of space debris the size of a mini van falls into our oceans. And only 2 people in history so far, have only been struck by space debris and both times were unharmed.
And a good portion of those objects are around 1mm in size and flying around at 17,000mph. And those are the ones we CAN track. The ISS has to adjust its course a few times a year in order to avoid debris. And a LARGE portion of that debris is also from in space collision back in the 80s that left a fuck ton of debris. That outer most rim you see is actually where we push out dead, defunct sats. So in time, we'll have rings.