Stunning images of planet Earth surrounded by space garbage

About 4,600 launches have been made since the first launch of Earth's man-made satellite in 1957. Nowadays, there are about 6,000 artificial satellites orbiting the planet.

Photos




These cant be real photos. Can it?

[edit on 16-4-2008 by Master_Wii]

reply to post by Master_Wii


It looks like a screen shot from a satellite tracking website. On my old computer I had bookmarked a similar site showing all the satellites in orbit with clickable info on each. The satellites and other debris floating in orbit shown in those pictures are not to scale. The purpose is to show how much stuff there is and the approximate locations of each including the different orbits.

Sill some very cool pictures. I put one as my desktop image.

Neat find Master.

reply to post by freedomataprice




Yeah I thought so too. I always knew there was alot of space junk, but this put this in perspective. I was thinking.....



How much junk will be in space in the next 10, 20 years?

Who responsibility is to clean this area?


This is indicative of whats happening with our planet. Whereever humans go there will be junk.

Just slighlty worried that the image if thats how our planet may look from space looks kinda scary


Maybe ET's would just look and think that we have space mines preventing contact......


Damn even im turning into an ATS pessermist


Remind me to stop

That is insanity, what do we need all those sattelites for? Its ugly

About 800 satellites are currently functioning of the total number of 5,600

I agree why so many. Is the 5,600 number just satellites or all space junk or debris? I know this may sound farfetch. Is it possible all this space junk can block out our sun or deminish sunlight over time ? This is interesting.


Here is the same link www.telegraph.co.uk... view=DETAILS&grid=&xml=/earth/2008/04/15/scispace115.xml


Is this Really what our planet looks like? This is unbelievable.

[edit on 16-4-2008 by Master_Wii]

[edit on 16-4-2008 by Master_Wii]

A 1999 study estimated there are some 4 million pounds of space junk in low-Earth orbit, just one part of a celestial sea of roughly 110,000 objects larger than 1 centimeter -- each big enough to damage a satellite or space-based telescope

www.space.com...

As of June 21 2000, the agency counted 8,927 man-made objects in the great above and beyond; some are there more or less permanently. Of the total, 2,671 are satellites (working or not), 90 are space probes that have been launched out of Earth orbit, and 6096 are mere chunks of debris zooming around the third planet from the Sun. The United States leads the former Soviet Union in the total quantity of orbital junk, but some companies and other organizations contribute significantly to the count.

Is there reason to be concerned?

Here is an interesting article regarding ideas being put forth to clean up some of this junk.

What's shocking is the fact that China's Fengyun satellite left behind at least 150,000 pieces of debris when it was destroyed.

The American satellite that the Navy shot down left 3,000 pieces of debris.

Cosmic Clean-Up: Wild Ideas to Sweep Space

Ideas for tidying up space range from the mundane, such as space tethers, to the exotic, such as trash-truck-like craft. Johnson says, however, that none of the proposals are feasible as yet.

~article~

The potential for space junk striking a functional satellite or the ISS is unacceptable. It doesn't matter what the density or the size of debris, that it is there and a potential danger should be the major concern.

It seems a though there isnt any current technology to clean this space. I'm confident SOME companies and governments and someone will finds practical ways to clean up the debris. And, if a company or government sees enough profit in the clean up, it will eventually get done.

Personally, when I get to go into space (Galactic Suites)

I don't want to have my trip ended because a nut the size of a .22 cal bullet zipping through me at 22000 kph.



[edit on 17-4-2008 by Master_Wii]

Actually this is typical human behaviour, we tend to sh** in our own backyard every chance we get, then pay for it later...

cool pics though, thanks for posting.

Those pictures look fake for some reason. It kind of looks like its a cartoon. Some of those satellites look like there the size of Massachusetts comparing them with the continents. Where were the pics taken from?

So just like Saturn has rings we too have rings except ours are made of garbage.
Pictures like those make me wonder how all of that garbage affects our weather,orbit and everything else.

Good Times.....

[edit on 17-4-2008 by Digital_Reality]

It seems that all the junkyards here on Earth are filled up and the only place to drop our garbages is space. Let's see how much time it will get until we drop them in moon.

reply to post by Digital_Reality




I was wondering the same thing. From the image it appears the Earth will be totally emcompassed in space junk.


Are there any recent photos of Earth from space. I agree these pictures could be real. Could they?

Article only

www.guardian.co.uk...


news.sbs.com.au...

And many more. Just google Earth Junk Orbit

Couldnt we just toss the junk at Earth and let re-entry burn everything up? Or perhaps construct giant nets, net the garbage and launch it at the sun. It would take awhile for it to get there, a few dozen months or so but as long at it is on course it would eventually make it there. They could do one launch a month untill it is gone. Also i dont think it would affect the operation of the sun as most of these materials would burn up between Mercury and the Sun and there would probably be nothing left of the stuff before it reached its destination.

again media overkill, lets take the average satellite lets assume its 35 feet tall by 10 feet in diameter, (massive comsat actually which is probably only 1 to 5% of the total crude up there)

so even if they were all this size, how large of an area would you need to put 6,000 of these things in one spot ?

Less then 10 football fields probably.

So 10 football fields packed full of junk spread out over the entire surface of the planet.....

Its like a single marble in a big lake.

wow. This really makes me sick. This is almost as bad as the junk here on earth. Soon we wont be able to go/look anywhere in space without seeing trash. (ok maybe this is just going overboard, because space is too big, but I think you get my point). I think we need to get that stuff down/fix it up there, and recycle them! I think this will be all made possible when space travel is commonplace, and the big corporations that need that crap up there. Theses are my own thoughts.

These look like CGI representations of the space junk to me,wildly exaggerated to make a cool picture.
I would put money on them not being actual photographs.

Its Pravda after all(sorry I am seriously anti any newspaper who would employ that sorcha faal person/hoaxer.