Space Junk Read and Answer
.pdf
School
North Park Secondary School**We aren't endorsed by this school
Course
SNC1DT GRADE 9 SC
Subject
Geography
Date
Dec 23, 2024
Pages
3
Uploaded by UltraBuffalo2724
Space Junk--By Josh AdlerMany people know that trash is a big problemon planet Earth. What many people don’t knowis that trash is becoming a problem in outerspace too. Years of space exploration have lefttons of “space junk” in orbit around the planet.According toBBC News, there are more than22,000 pieces of junk in space around theearth. And these are just the items that we can see from the surface of the earth bytelescopes or radars. There are also millions of smaller pieces of junk that we can’t see.Objects, like bits of old space rockets or satellites, move around the planet at very highspeeds, so fast that even a very small piece can break important satellites or becomedangerous to people, particularly astronauts. If the tiniest piece of junk crashed into aspacecraft, it could damage the vehicle. That’s because the faster an object moves, thegreater the impact of the object collides with something else.To make things worse, when a piece of space junk collides with another piece of spacejunk, the two pieces break into many smaller pieces. This happened in 2009 when aworking United States satellite collided with a Russian satellite that was no longerfunctioning. The collision caused the satellites to break into more than 2,000 pieces.To help minimize additional space junk, countries around the world have agreed to limitthe time their space tools stay in orbit to 25 years. Each tool must be built to fall safelyinto the earth’s atmosphere, or the mass of gases that surround the earth, after that. Inthe upper parts of the atmosphere, it will burn up.Space Junk© 2013 ReadWorks®, Inc. All rights reserved.Many scientists are also proposing different ways to clean up space junk. In England, ametal harpoon is being tested that can be fired into space trash, grip the trash, and thenpull the space junk into the earth’s atmosphere where it would burn up.The Germans have been planning a space mission with robots that would collect piecesof space trash and bring them back to Earth so that they can be safely destroyed.
In 2007 the Chinese tried to blow up one of its satellites with a missile. Unfortunately, theexplosion only created thousands of pieces of smaller space junk!"In our opinion, the problem is very challenging, and it's quite urgent as well," said MarcoCastronuovo, an Italian Space Agency researcher who is working to solve the problem.One reason that it’s urgent is that countries are sending more and more objects intospace. Many of these objects are tools that help people use their cell phones orcomputers."The time to act is now; as we go farther in time we will need to remove more and morefragments," he says.Answer the following. Highlight the correct answer.1. What has left tons of "space junk” in orbit around the earth?A) robots sent on space missionsB) years of space explorationC) lack of recyclingD) missiles in outer space2. Countries around the world have agreed to limit space tools in orbit to 25 years.What problem does this solution address?A) the increasing amount of space junk in orbit around the earthB) space agencies exploring spaceC) Chinese efforts to blow up a satelliteD) objects moving around the planet at very high speeds3. Why have countries agreed to build space tools that must fall safely intothe earth's atmosphere?A) remove pollution from the atmosphere after returning from spaceB)burn up in the atmosphere and don't become space junkC)pollute the atmosphere instead of outer spaceD)analyze the different gases that make up the atmosphere after returning from4. What was caused by the 2009 collision of a United States satellite and a Russiansatellite?In 2009, the United States satellite and the derelict Russian satellite accidentally collided at
a high speed and both broke into more than 2000 pieces.5. What have the Germans done to help clean up space junk?The Germans have been planning a space mission with robots that would collect piecesof space trash and bring them back to Earth so that they can be safely destroyed.6. How do you think we should deal with space junk?NASA has already proposed a program that could clean this dirty mess around the Earth. It'scalled a Space Debris Elimination program. This program involves shooting gasses into space inorder to minimize the debris orbit so that it can later fall back to Earth, and burn up in ouratmosphere. However, I feel before we clean up space, we should clean our own earth becauseit is of utmost priority and Earth is suffering. Let’s let NASA do its job and let’s work to fulfil ours.7. Should we be worried about space junk?Space junk is a very serious and escalating problem, not to mention a serious hazard, tovery expensive satellites, Earth monitoring, communication systems, space probes, andastronauts. Every time two items of junk collide, they break into smaller pieces which are morewidely spread and harder to collect and remove. It seems we are pretty safe, but each yeararound 195,000 kg of space junk falls back to Earth, and it's on the increase! Due to the reasonsabove, I feel we should be worried about this problem of debris and space junk around ourplanet.