ASTRONAUTS aboard the International Space Station (ISS) have been forced to take shelter after a disused Russian satellite broke up in orbit.
Nearly 200 shards of debris were sprayed near the path of the ISS, meaning astronauts had to brace for a potential impact for about an hour.
While large debris-generating events are rare, they are of increasing concern to both space objects and infrastructure and people on Earth.[/caption]
The incident occurred in an orbit near the ISS at 4pm GMT on Wednesday, according to the US Space Command.
It happened in a region of the atmosphere that is dominated by thousands of small to large satellites, called low Earth orbit (LEO).
It's unclear what caused the breakup of the Resurs-P1 Russian Earth observation satellite, which Russia said it will retire in 2022, Reuters first reported.
Space Command, which tracks hazardous debris in space, said there was no immediate threat to other satellites.
However, Space Command said the satellite immediately created “over 100 pieces of trackable debris”.
By Thursday afternoon, that number had grown to at least 180 pieces, according to US space-tracking firm LeoLabs.
“Due to the low orbit of this debris cloud, we estimate it'll be weeks to months before the hazard has passed,” LeoLabs told Reuters.
While large debris-generating events are rare, they are of increasing concern to both space objects and infrastructure and people on Earth.
The Kessler effect, proposed by Nasa scientist Donald J. Kessler in 1978, suggests a nightmare scenario where the number of satellites and orbital debris is so high that an endless string of collisions occur.
Each impact generates more space debris and, in turn, a cascading stream of collisions.
A number of experts now believe this effect is a matter of when, not if.
Too many close calls
By Millie Turner, Senior Technology & Science Reporter
At the current rate, it's only a matter of time before we have our first casualty from man-made space objects.
No one has yet died from falling space debris, although there have been plenty of instances of infrastructure damage and even injuries.
In 2002, six-year-old boy Wu Jie became the first person to be directly injured by falling space junk, after 20 metal rocket chunks showered on his village in China.
Fast forward to June 2024, and we have a Florida family suing Nasa for $80,000 in damages after an object from the ISS pummeled through their home.
The cylindrical object crashed two-floors deep into their house earlier this year and almost hit their son.
The choppy irregularity of space launches pre-SpaceX meant Nasa could afford to rely on the chance of spent metal falling into the ocean or in an uninhabited area – if it hadn't already burned up.
But that won't work for much longer.
