Space
Junk
In 1997, Lottie Williams was taking a walk in a park
in Tulsa, Oklahoma when a piece of metal fell out of the sky and hit her
shoulder. She later found out that it was a part of an old space rocket that
fell to Earth.
So how did this happen? Since 1957, space programmes
have sent thousands of objects into orbit. Some of these objects fall back to
Earth and burn up on the way to the surface. However, there’s a lot of debris
like old rocket parts and used satellites still circling the Earth. Even a
glove that was lost during the first American spacewalk in 1965 is still out
there somewhere!
No one knows how much junk is circulating in space,
but scientists estimate that there are 22,000 man-made objects that are big
enough to track. In addition, there are millions of pieces of metal, plastic
and glass that are smaller than a centimetre. They were created by explosions
or accidental collisions between large space objects.
All this debris is causing serious problems for space
programmes today. Even a little piece of junk can destroy a satellite, which
costs millions of dollars. These tiny pieces are actually the most dangerous
because they move at extremely high speeds but they are too small to track.
In 1983, the windscreen of the shuttle Challenger
was hit by a 0.3-mm fragment that was travelling at 4 kilometres per second.
The windscreen had to be replaced because of the damage. In June 2011, there
was a near collision between the International Space Station and an
unidentified piece of junk. It flew so close that the space crew immediately
prepared to evacuate the station for their own safety.
At
the moment, there are agreements among the space agencies to make sure that
what is sent into space will be designed to return towards Earth and burn up on
the way. This will reduce space debris in the coming years, but will not remove
what is already out there. Therefore, scientists are considering unusual
techniques to clean up the skies, like special lasers or devices that will
sweep up the space debris. No matter what the method, the international space
community knows that a solution has to be found now to protect future space
exploration.
Writing Test: Write a summary (80 words) of the
following text. Rephrase, don't copy and paste from the text.
Summary
In
the previous text, Lottie Williams was hit by something made of metal coming
from the sky. The reason for this seems to be the comeback many different
materials are experiencing, such as rockets or satellites that end up falling
out of the sky. It is widely accepted that this debris is risky for us, due to
the huge damage they can cause. An example of this is the near collision the
International Space Station and a piece of junk could have suffered in 2011.
For this reason, agreements are being made not only to avoid this, but to clean
up skies, too.
Production made by Juan Pablo Abello on A Summary. (IES V Centenario - Sevilla).
Production made by Juan Pablo Abello on A Summary. (IES V Centenario - Sevilla).
