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This is a view of all tracked objects currently in low Earth and geosynchronous orbit. As you can see,
there are litterally thousands of objects floating around up there, all over the place. Click here to
see the Quicktime movie version of this animation.
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The problem is that the near-earth space environment - where satellites,
the Shuttle, Mir, and the coming International Space Station orbit the
earth - is cluttered with man-made debris and naturally occurring meteoroids.
Though most of the debris are very small, they are traveling at such high speeds that
if a debris particle were to collide with one of these spacecraft, it would cause
significant damage. The damage could functionally comprimise the vehicle, or
worse, result in catastrophic failure.
So how much junk is floating around up there? How did it get there?
There is a major research effort devoted to quantifying and understanding the particulate environment in
orbit around our planet.
The physical processes involved in hypervelocity impacts are complex, yet fascinating.
Take a look at some examples that illustrate just how lethal even very
small particles can be when they collide at hypervelocities (greater than 3 km/s).
Spacecraft do get hit by orbital debris. One satellite sent to measure
various aspects of the near-earth environment returned to earth with
millions of impacts, ranging in size from microscopic surface abrasions, to large craters and holes.
Here are some examples of both documented and suspected impact events that have
occurred on orbit.
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