Time and again, pieces fall to earth This is how much space debris orbits above our heads
A Starlink satellite burned up over Switzerland on Tuesday evening. Satellites are by no means the only space debris that poses a threat to the Earth.
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- A Starlink satellite burned up over Switzerland on Tuesday evening.
- There is a lot of space debris flying around in space - around 12,900 tons in total.
- ESA's ClearSpace-1 mission is set to capture small pieces of debris and clean up space from 2028.
On Tuesday evening at 9.30 pm, a trail of light could be seen over Switzerland. The spectacle could have been dangerous. It was not a shooting star, but a Starlink satellite that entered the Earth's atmosphere and burned up.
Starlink satellites belong to Elon Musk's aerospace company SpaceX. They are designed to make fast internet available everywhere and fly at an altitude of around 500 kilometers. SpaceX is by far the largest operator with more than 5,000 Starlink satellites in orbit.
The Starlink satellites can always be seen over Switzerland. They usually move across the sky as a fast-moving string of lights. Because the satellites fly so low, they can be seen particularly brightly.
Satellites fly at different altitudes
But space is not just teeming with Elon Musk's satellites. Since 1957, the beginning of the space age, almost 6,800 rockets have been launched into space. These have placed around 19,000 satellites in orbit.
According to the European Space Agency (ESA), there are still around 13,000 satellites in orbit today, just over 10,000 of which are still in operation. These fly at different altitudes around the earth and are used for navigation, weather forecasts and telecommunications, for example.
The International Space Station (ISS) and SpaceX satellites are located within 2,000 kilometers of the Earth's surface, in what is known as Low Earth Orbit (LEO). LEO is also home to communications and Earth observation satellites.
Navigation satellites used for GPS systems are located in the Medium Earth Orbit (MEO) at an altitude of between 2000 and 36,000 kilometers.
The Earth orbit at an altitude of just under 36,000 kilometers is referred to as the Geostationary Earth Orbit (GEO). The GEO contains satellites that follow the Earth's rotation and therefore move over the same point on the Earth's surface, the equator. Communication and weather satellites in particular are located in this orbit.
Space is full of space debris
In addition to satellites, there are other objects flying around in space. These are often pieces of debris from larger objects. 36,000 of these pieces are being tracked, but the ESA estimates the number of pieces of debris larger than 10 centimetres at around 40,500.
In addition, 1,100,000 pieces between 1 and 10 centimetres in size are said to be in orbit and 130 million pieces smaller than 1 centimetre. In total, more than 12,900 tons of material are said to be in orbit.
Objects can fall to Earth
Debris falling to Earth happens all the time. However, if they do not burn up completely when they enter the Earth's atmosphere, they often end up in the ocean. People have never been harmed by objects from space.
Satellites can also fall to earth. This is what happened to the ESA satellite "ERS-2" in February this year. The satellite entered the atmosphere in an uncontrolled manner and burned up over the Pacific Ocean.
How space debris is created - and should be removed
How is space debris created? Objects in orbit collide with each other and the collision produces many fragments. More than 650 collisions are said to have already occurred - and this number is likely to increase in the coming years.
"The amount of debris is growing enormously every year," said ESA scientist Holger Krag in a press release back in 2020. With the increasing number of space missions and thousands of mini-satellites being placed in low-Earth orbit, the risk of collisions and debris formation is increasing.
The ESA mission "ClearSpace-1" aims to reduce space debris. The object will use image and motion detection to recognize and capture small pieces of debris. The mission is to be launched in 2028 under the leadership of the Swiss company ClearSpace.
In 2023, the European Space Agency successfully completed an attempt with the Aeolus satellite to have the satellite crash over the Atlantic in a semi-controlled manner, as reported by the NZZ. Such satellites are also to be developed in the future in order to make future missions sustainable.
