Where Do Satellites Go When They Die?
Thu, Sep 25, 2008
Images by: European Space Agency
No matter how often we hear about the developed world becoming more like Big Brother every day, it’s not until you see images like these from ESA that you get creeped out. How much are we being watched, traced, listened to, recorded? Anyone who has ever read George Orwell’s novel, 1984, might have seen it coming.
The computer-generated image above was released by the European Space Agency earlier this year, which shows the Earth looking more and more like our hula-hooping buddy, Saturn. The image highlights trackable objects orbiting the Earth; all 12,000 of them, and that’s just an estimation. Around 11,500, floating at an altitude of 800 to 1,500 kms, are thought to be military, scientific, commercial and navigational in nature but only around 7% are in working order. The rest are mostly telecommunications satellites and orbit in the direction of the Earth’s rotation, or geostationary orbit as it’s known. They sit about 35,786 kms high.
Another image shows the differentiation between the satellites more clearly. Red depicts debris; the white dots are operating satellites and the outer ring is composed of satellites in geostationary orbit, which means they always sit on the same spot over the Earth.
North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) has been tracking objects in orbit since 1961 but now there is real concern that, with so much material floating around up there, it may cause damage to existing satellites and, worse still, working astronauts. Even though much of the debris is too small to follow, their velocity can cause untold damage. Once a tiny speck of paint that had come loose from a satellite punched a quarter-inch hole in the window of a space shuttle! Imagine going all the way into space, carrying out your given mission and then succumbing to the wrath of a speck of paint. Nightmare.
More of a worry though is, not just what’s going to happen to the existing unwanted bits and bobs orbiting Earth but what the powers that be plan to do with future satellites. There’s a real danger of the space above our planet turning into the largest dumping ground in the ‘verse. And, what’s worse is, when all those aliens people are expecting to visit do finally pop round for a chinwag, they’ll have problems figuring out which planet’s Earth and which is Saturn with all those rings.
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4 Trackbacks For This Post
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¿A donde van los satélites cuando mueren? Says:
September 26th, 2008 at 8:29 pm[...] ¿A donde van los satélites cuando mueren?www.environmentalgraffiti.com/featured/satellites-die/2408 por thombjork hace pocos segundos [...]
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» Clutter Earth Stuff Says:
September 26th, 2008 at 9:18 pm[...] peaking above the moon horizon. I found a few pictures, via Digg, of what the European Space Agency thinks the Earth looks like from far [...]
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Where do satellites go to die? - Austech Says:
September 27th, 2008 at 4:28 am[...] do satellites go to die? Thought this was a very interesting article.. Where Do Satellites Go When They Die?|Environmental Graffiti The computer-generated image above was released by the European Space Agency earlier this year, [...]
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The Space Junk Problem — Gravity Control Says:
September 28th, 2008 at 3:42 pm[...] Dangerous Flotsam [...]
September 25th, 2008 at 9:39 pm
This is a great representation of a little known ecological danger, one that needs to be included on the list of things that require immediate planning to deal with.
September 26th, 2008 at 2:47 am
This is quite some sensationalism. Way to make the satellites look HUGE. You suck.
September 26th, 2008 at 2:48 am
OMG is there really that much junk in space?
http://www.privacy.es.tc
September 26th, 2008 at 2:56 am
Wow now that’s space junk!
September 26th, 2008 at 4:09 am
couldn’t we then find inhabited planets by looking for planets with a ton of junk orbiting around them? maybe our telescopes are not capable of resolving that level of detail, but still, something to work towards.
September 26th, 2008 at 4:35 am
Why the fuck can I never see any pictures on this damn website? Shitty…
September 26th, 2008 at 5:36 am
This would be a good reason to develop worm-hole technology. Or some kind of space vacuum cleaner…
September 26th, 2008 at 6:11 am
Precious metals fill our skies while down on earth, manhole covers get stolen.
September 26th, 2008 at 6:27 am
Wow that’s rather sad, not only have we polluted our planet but also the immediate space around it.
September 26th, 2008 at 6:43 am
These pictures are showing the satellites as much bigger than the state of Alaska. If the satellites were drawn to scale, we wouldn’t even see them. We put billions of pieces of plastic trash under the ground each day, and you’re worried about 12,000 bits of metal orbiting our planet? C’mon, this is just fearmongering.
September 26th, 2008 at 7:23 am
Typical human behavior, fucking up everything around them
September 26th, 2008 at 7:35 am
Very cool post! It might be responsible though to point out to your readers that the satellites above are not drawn to scale!
September 26th, 2008 at 8:03 am
I don’t know why anyone would be particularly surprised by these images - we don’t care where we dump out trash ‘down here’ so why should we care what happens ‘up there’? It’s not like anyone is going to ground us unless we tidy up the mess!
I have wondered just how much garbage is floating above us. Okay, most of it would burn up on reentry so isn’t a danger down here, but to space vehicles or astronauts doing a space walk? Well, it must be really fun with bits of debris zipping about like you’re caught in the crossfire of a gang war!
Past generations when satellite technology and space exploration were new will have left tons of garbage up there, but we’re supposed to be much wiser and more aware now, so I wonder how much is still dumped up there once it’s passed it’s useful life? Do we still just sweep things under the carpet hoping no one will ever see it? I hope not, but somehow I’m pretty sure we do!
Steve N. Lee
author of eco-blog http://www.lionsledbysheep.com
and suspense thriller ‘What if…?’
September 26th, 2008 at 8:23 am
Ha! Like the movie Wall-E.
September 26th, 2008 at 5:57 pm
Although you highlight something that may indeed need to be taken care of… i can’t help thinking, haven’t you got other things to worry about, rather than aliens being unable to tell us apart frm saturn???… I mean these pictures are just computer generated right? Quit whingeing.
September 26th, 2008 at 8:09 pm
@nobody important,
I couldn’t see pics on here for the longest time I tried IE, Firefox, and IE Tab in Firefox surprisingly they work in Google Chrome. Try that. As for this post thats nuts i can’t believe that there is that much crap floating around up there.
September 26th, 2008 at 8:18 pm
the paint chip story is not true. You sensationalized a ding. There was no hole. note true.
September 27th, 2008 at 7:20 am
So an catastrophic sequential destruction of all of our man made satellites is inevitable at some point, but not predictable. All it will take is one of the current satellites being hit with a small meteor. However your last comment was ridiculous, unfounded and cause a large lack of perceived credibility, you should watch speculative flaws like this in the future to help avoid harsh criticism.
September 27th, 2008 at 2:06 pm
Too many satellites.
September 28th, 2008 at 3:17 am
You fail to realize that these images are not in proportion. The space around the earth is far from being cluttered; these satellites are too small in proportion with the earth to really matter. Crashing into one of them is just a matter of bad luck.
September 30th, 2008 at 3:29 am
“Once a tiny speck of paint that had come loose from a satellite punched a quarter-inch hole in the window of a space shuttle! Imagine going all the way into space, carrying out your given mission and then succumbing to the wrath of a speck of paint. Nightmare.”
that doesn’t make sense…
in phsyics, they told us that all objects give an equal and opposite reaction, but also pointed out, that objects can’t give more than they have, and can’t take more than they have
so it wouldn’t make sense that a speck of paint could cause a quarter inch hole in a window, a thick thick window, of a space shuttle..
anyone care to explain it?