Sharjah24 – Reuters: Researchers theorize that, if nothing is done about the millions of pieces of space junk orbiting Earth, our planet will develop rings made of junk.
The Salt Lake Tribune reports that a new scientific study is looking at ways to keep the Earth from growing a visible ring made entirely of junk.
The study found that there are currently 170 million pieces of space junk in orbit around the Earth.
Of these, 23,000 are larger than a softball and dangerous enough to be tracked by the U.S. Department of Defense.
One of the study’s contributors, robotics professor Jake Abbot of the University of Utah, said that “Earth is on course to have its own rings. They’ll just be made of junk.”
The 170 million pieces of space junk travel at extremely high speeds and can each cause severe damage to spacecraft and astronauts.
This number is expected to rise sharply, as SpaceX and Amazon are currently putting thousands of small satellites in orbit per year.
Professor Abbot told the Salt Lake Tribune that space junk pieces always spin, so they would break robotic arms, which is why he and his team are looking at building spacecraft with highly specialized magnets to catch and collect debris in Earth orbit.
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