Monday, April 28, 2008

space junk!

It used to be called the final frontier - the great unknown only the most prized and powerful technology could conquer.

But now, as these images show, the space beyond our atmosphere has become yet one more place blighted by man-made litter, with potentially devastating results. Known as 'space junk', the detritus consists of derelict spacecraft and dead satellites floating around the earth's orbit.

The spectacular images, produced digitally by the European Space Operations Centre, show how far humans have cluttered outer space in the 51 years since Sputnik One became the first man-made object in space. The rubbish consists of all kinds of discarded parts - rocket casing, pieces of metal ejected during collisions, nuts and bolts, dropped tools - documented piece by piece by Nasa.

More pics here

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

The same thing happened on Mt Everest and eventually the climbers realized they had to have special climbs to clean up the litter up there. I can foresee us having to do special flights just to begin cleaning up the mess up in orbit.

Chuck