Experience Just How Much Space Junk is Floating Around, in One Astounding Interactive

[MrScorpio]

It's crowded up there: We all know that humans have created a lot of garbage on Earth, but did you know that the amount of junk we’ve created in space is equally extraordinary? These two interactives give you a feel for just how much. The first (above), made by Alex Rasmussen, compares the amount of active satellites (green) with inactive spacecraft (gray) and fragmented space debris (red). As you can see, there’s a lot of red dots.

Although it’s difficult to observe exactly how many there are, the European Space Agency (ESA) estimates that there are 29,000 pieces larger than 10 cm, 670,000 larger than 1 cm and more than 170 million larger than 1 mm. The debris has a total mass of more than 6,300 tonnes and can travel as fast as 35,000 miles per hour.



http://www.policymic.com/articles/82483/experience-just-how-much-space-junk-is-floating-around-in-one-astounding-interactive?utm_source=policymicTBLR&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=Feb

[Richardo]

1. That's a scene from Wall-E.

Really, that's amazing - I like the band in geosynchronous orbit. Arthur C. Clarke would be astounded.