Who’s the biggest space polluter on the planet? Why that
would be China, a relative newcomer to the space age, which now tops the list
of countries contributing to space debris, according to a study by the Russian
space agency, Roscosmos.
China accounts for 40 percent of the space debris, followed
by the United States, which produces 27.5 percent and Russia, with 25.5
percent, the study showed.
Honors for catapulting China to the top of the orbital
garbage heap fall to the Chinese military, which deliberately destroyed a
defunct weather satellite in 2007 to test a missile. The explosion created more
than 2,800 pieces of free-flying shrapnel.
In all, there’s more than 10,000 dead spacecraft, rocket
bodies and other relics of the space age circling Earth, all of which present a
formidable challenge for governments, researchers and companies wishing to
operate satellites for remote sensing, science, communications and other
services.
The Russian news agency RIA Novosti reports that Russian
scientists have proposed the creation of an international airspace system for
monitoring the near-Earth space environment, an idea that already has support
internationally.
The dangers of space debris hit home last year when a
decommissioned Russian military satellite crashed into and destroyed one of
Iridium’s mobile communications spacecraft in what is believed to be the first
in-space collision.
Image credit: NASA
