Space junk catastrophe bound to happen, can prove lethal to astronauts, experts say

Space junk has become a major concern in the past few years, with experts saying that the issue needs to be tackled on priority. Now researchers from the orbital mapping firm LeoLabs have issued a warning, saying that with all the debris swirling in orbit, a catastrophe is bound to occur soon.

Talking to Forbes, LeoLabs senior technical fellow Darren McKnight called it a "ticking time bomb" waiting to happen.

There is an awful amount of space junk and McKnight and his colleagues are working on ways to avert any untoward incident. Earth is surrounded by almost 30,000 objects bigger than a softball and they are all travelling at extremely fast speeds.

The issue is so dire that the company isn't too optimistic about winning over it. LeoLabs COO Dan Ceperly told Forbes, "This grim reality means that collisions are not a question of if but when."

Ceperly says that space debris poses a huge risk to human life and consequently astronauts are in danger. "Any size fragment above a few millimetres is likely lethal to astronauts," Ceperley told Forbes.

The company has the technology to track objects as small as four inches in diameter. But it cannot pinpoint objects that are smaller than these, which are likely several.

Thankfully, space debris has yet to impact human life. However, the damage has already started when it comes to objects. In 2021, a tiny piece of shrapnel damaged and poked a hole in the Canadarm2 robotic arm outside the International Space Station.

Space debris accidents

McKnight points out the dangers present in the highest parts of low-Earth orbit. He says the United States and the former Soviet Union thrust several of their used rocket upper stages off into space, and have never agreed upon how to clean them up.

Two of these upper-stage rockets came within 500 feet of each other in June 2022, somehow managing to avoid a major collision.

In 2021, a Chinese military satellite was reportedly smashed by a disintegrating Russian rocket. Harvard astrophysicist and satellite tracker Jonathan McDowell conducted an investigation according to which the Chinese satellite Yunhai 1-02 supposedly crashed into a piece of space junk.

These incidents highlight the risks present in space because of the junk present in space. With China also now actively seeking to ace the race for space, space debris is only likely to grow, adding to the current scary scenario.