Imagine taking your date out one night in hopes of dazzling them with your astronomy rizz and naming every constellation in the sky — sounds super romantic, no? Except, a long, hard look at the sky through your telescope, unravels patterns unlike any constellations you’ve ever seen since childhood. It then dawns on you that those aren’t star clusters, but human-made garbage — quite a bit of it, in fact.<br /><br />Humanity has had a tradition of leaving its mark wherever it went for a long time now. The only difference is that while early human ancestors left some harmless wall art in the caves they inhabited, leaving a trail of trash is more our style. And sadly, space hasn’t been spared either.<br /><br />Over 160 million pieces of human-made debris clutter Earth's orbit, whizzing around at speeds of 15 kilometres per second! Even a tiny piece can wreak havoc, potentially destroying <keyword id="19977109" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="satellites" source="keywords">satellites</keyword> critical for our daily lives. This space junk jeopardises everything from <keyword id="21708436" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="GPS-navigation" source="keywords">GPS navigation</keyword> to internet access, financial services, and even monitoring <keyword id="21201859" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="environmental-disasters" source="keywords">environmental disasters</keyword>.<br /><br />Enter <a href="https://spacetrashsigns.org/">Space Trash Signs</a>, a groundbreaking initiative raising awareness about this invisible threat. Launched by a coalition of <keyword id="21118038" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="aerospace-companies" source="keywords">aerospace companies</keyword>, scientists, and artists, <keyword id="21708435" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="Space-Trash-Signs" source="keywords">Space Trash Signs</keyword> uses a unique approach: constellations made entirely of <keyword id="943402" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="space-debris" source="Orion">space debris</keyword>!<br /><br />The company wanted to make space debris tangible for the public and educate them about the daily life consequences. Constellations were created as a way of mapping and understanding the stars in the night sky. This served as inspiration to propose the same for space debris.<br /><br />Each of these ten "trash constellations" represent a different consequence of space pollution. "The Broken Compass" warns of losing GPS, impacting billions and crippling modern aviation. "The Great 404" signifies limited internet access, potentially isolating entire communities. "The <keyword id="21708438" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="lost-harvest" source="keywords">Lost Harvest</keyword>" highlights the danger to vital environmental data collected by satellites, data that helps prevent famines and environmental disasters.<br /><br />Spotting space junk isn’t possible for the common man even though there is so much of it because they do not emit light and aren’t nearly as massive as stars. But <keyword id="21708437" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="space-trash" source="keywords">Space Trash</keyword> Signs builds on our natural fascination with the fiery bodies, says Alex Schill, Chief Creative Officer at Serviceplan Group. It serves as a powerful way to educate people about a critical issue that affects us all.<br /><br />However, Space Trash Signs isn't just about grabbing attention. The constellations are built using real-time data from <keyword id="21555945" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="Privateer" source="keywords" meta.keywordsubtype="org" meta.entityname="Privateer" meta.hostid="261" meta.entityid="Privateer">Privateer</keyword>, a space observation company co-founded by Steve Wozniak. This data pinpoints the location, size, and even origin of each piece of debris. For example, "The Lost Harvest" appears over the Amazon rainforest, highlighting the threat to this biodiverse region.<br /><br />The initiative doesn't stop there. Space Trash Signs come alive in over 700 planetariums worldwide, offering an immersive experience. They're also integrated into popular AR stargazing apps, bringing the issue directly to the fingertips.<br /><br />A clever digital campaign further emphasises the consequences. Imagine encountering staged website errors, failed parcel tracking, or missing weather forecasts. These seemingly random glitches all lead to the Space Trash Signs website, where you can learn more, explore the constellations, and even take action.<br /><br />“There are some internationally agreed upon guidelines on debris clean-up and prevention. But none of these mechanisms has enforceability. If we don’t change our behavior, space will become unusable,” says chief scientist Dr Moriba Jah, Privateer.<br /><br />Space Trash Signs is a growing movement, uniting a diverse group of organisations and individuals under the banner of a clean and sustainable space future.<br />

Can you name these new space trash constellations? 10 new signs highlight consequences of space garbage

<keyword id="19905255" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="SpaceX" source="keywords" meta.keywordsubtype="org" meta.entityname="SpaceX" meta.hostid="261" meta.entityid="SpaceX">SpaceX</keyword> suffered a setback in its Starlink satellite constellation project this week after a malfunction during launch resulted in the loss of 20 satellites. While the Musk-ownder company tried to salvage the situation, bad <keyword id="20087207" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="space-weather" source="keywords">space weather</keyword> doomed the mission.<br /><br />The incident occurred on Thursday night when the second-stage engine of a Falcon 9 rocket failed to complete its planned burn. This left the deployed <keyword id="19998609" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="Starlink-satellites" source="keywords">Starlink satellites</keyword> in a much lower orbit than intended, where they encountered significant atmospheric drag.<br /><br />At this level of drag, our maximum available thrust is unlikely to be enough to successfully raise the satellites, SpaceX said. The company attempted to use the satellites' onboard <keyword id="22415598" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="ion-thrusters" source="keywords">ion thrusters</keyword> to raise their orbits. However, the situation was further complicated by an unusually "puffed-up" atmosphere due to recent high <keyword id="20792842" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="solar-activity" source="keywords">solar activity</keyword>. This extra atmospheric drag sealed the fate of the satellites, even with the attempted thruster boost.<br /><br /><strong>Also read:</strong> <a class="tout-title-link" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/spacex-nasa-need-better-space-debris-models-reduce-impact-risk-2024-7"><strong>SpaceX Dragon Capsule debris as big as a car hood crash-landed in North Carolina. It's part of a major space trash problem.</strong></a><br /><br />This incident marks a rare anomaly for the typically reliable Falcon 9, a workhorse for SpaceX missions. CEO <keyword id="19903807" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="Elon-Musk" source="keywords">Elon Musk</keyword> acknowledged the situation on social media, referencing Star Trek in a lighthearted attempt to explain the extreme measures taken: "We had them attempt to run the ion thrusters at 'warp 9' speed...but unlike a Star Trek episode, this will probably not work."<br /><br />Meanwhile, the recent solar activity included a powerful <keyword id="13895659" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="x-class-solar-flare" source="Orion">X-class solar flare</keyword> from sunspot AR3738, which fortunately did not produce a geomagnetic storm. However, radiation from the solar flare ionised the top of Earth's atmosphere, causing shortwave radio blackouts over Australia, southeast Asia and Japan. Mariners and ham radio operators in the area may have noticed a 30-minute loss of signal at all frequencies below 25 MHz, spaceweather.com reported.<br /><br />Forecasts suggest that further solar explosions are possible. The space industry will have to monitor the situation closely ahead on any future launches.<br /><br /><strong>Related: <a class="tout-title-link" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/spacex-frat-boy-culture-workers-reportedly-planned-drinking-games-email-2024-7"><strong>Former SpaceX worker describes 'frat boy' culture where colleagues joked about overseeing launches while drunk</strong></a></strong><br />

20 Starlink satellites rained down on Earth yesterday; turbulent space weather doomed mission recovery

<br /><ul><li>Space is getting more congested as more satellites are launched into outer space resulting in more debris in Earth's orbits.</li><li>Stewart Bain, CEO of NorthStar Earth and Space, explains how accurate information could help companies protect their satellites from possible collisions.</li><li>Since space is common property, the impetus is on collaboration to find measure, detect and mitigate <keyword id="943402" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Space-Debris">space debris</keyword> to make Earth's orbits safe.</li></ul><br />Putting a satellite up in space is not a rare achievement anymore. But, that doesn’t mean that it’s not expensive. Satellite companies want to <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/amazons-jeff-bezos-space-x-elon-musk-and-google-want-to-give-the-whole-world-internet/articleshow/69244655.cms">protect their assets in space</a>, but that’s getting harder and harder as Earth’s orbits are <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/india-asat-test-marks-time-for-nations-to-make-new-space-treaty/articleshow/68607435.cms">getting increasingly congested</a>.<br /><br />The increasing amount of trash and debris left over from rocket launches and left over zombie satellites needs a new kind of map to navigate through the mess. <br /><br />The European Space Agency (<a href="https://m.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Safety/Space_Debris/Space_debris_by_the_numbers">ESA</a>) estimates that there are around 20,000 objects in space and that’s only going to increase as more players enter the space.<br /><br />“It’s not like a highway here (on Earth), where there’s an accident and you can just come and clean it up and traffic continues,” explains Stewart Bain, the CEO of NorthStar Earth and Space — a Canadian company focused on space situational awareness. <br /><br />“When we create it (an accident) up in space, it stays. You’re driving around the garbage mound. And the garbage becomes an obstacle to get around,” Bain adds. <br /><br /><strong>A million little pieces <br /></strong><br />The most famous threat of space debris came from the 2009 destruction of Iridium 33 when it collided with a defunct Russian satellite. Though the satellite was not destroyed, the resulting debris from the collision created 1,000 fragments that were larger than 10 centimeters among other smaller ones.<br /><br />The ability to maneuver a satellite in space comes from what is around it and its precise location. Companies don’t want to be warned a thousand times a day, according to Bain, which is why accurate information is important to differentiate between an actual collision and one that ‘might’ happen. <br /><br />Bain explains, “If your satellite is worth a billion dollars and it's a commercial Earth observation satellite, you want to make sure that you have an accurate prediction and a reliable up-to-date prediction where the debris is, so that you can manage your flight properly.”<br /><br />It’s similar to when an Uber map shows that the driver is still on enroute, when he is outside the building or when Google makes mistakes with exact location on a map. <br /><br />When it comes to removing debris from space Bain says, “You need to know where it is before you go get it. You could miss it by 5 kilometers, you could miss it by 20 kilometres.”<br /><br />And, the more congested space becomes — the more accurate the information has to be.<br /><br /><strong>It’s everyone’s problem <br /><br /></strong>Space, at least for now, doesn’t belong to any one country. Though it started with three countries initially, now the number has gone up to 53 countries which have launched satellites in Earth’s low and medium orbits. <br /><br />As more objects are sent to space, the risk of collisions increases.<br /><br />“We’re starting to occupy a space that was relatively a blank sheet… When you talk about debris, you’re talking about its full the assessment. You’re talking about everything down to a paint chip. A paint chip travelling at 16km/s puts a significant hole in just about anything,” Bain explains.<br /><br />He adds, “You can’t pollute in one country and not expect it impact another. It’s very much amplified in space because of remoteness. When you create a mess in space, we all experience it. So, if we all experience it, we really are in this together.”<br /><br /><strong>That’s my spot<br /></strong><br />It’s not just about Earth’s orbits getting congested but preference of particular spots as they provide a better angle or better parameters to observe Earth. <br /><br />NorthStar’s planned 40-satellite constellation, set to launch in 2021, to help monitor and map space debris is one way to that private and government satellite companies can gain access to information that can help mitigate the risk of colliding with stray objects in space. <br /><br />NorthStar and ExoAnalytic are collaborating on this project to bring more accurate measurements of objects in space, while also keeping an eye on Earth’s chemistry. <br /><br />The culmination of telescopes will help NorthStar capture more information. Bain elucidates, “The more times you look at something or the more angles from which you look at something, the higher the precision of the prediction of its location.”<br /><br />Having a better understanding of the space debris can help organisations form better clean space policies, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/new-grading-system-for-satellite-launches/articleshow/69230966.cms">something that is already underway. </a><br /><br />Space debris is an unavoidable consequence of using space and regulations need to catch up in order to manage the situation. There is a need for a global standard — a unified library that everyone that refer to in order to understand how to use space.<br /><br /><strong>See also:<br /></strong><a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/new-grading-system-for-satellite-launches/articleshow/69230966.cms">A new space debris grading system could keep countries from cluttering up outer space</a><br /><br /><a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/indias-asat-mission-shakti-creates-space-debris/articleshow/68594904.cms">India's test of its anti-satellite weapon may have weakened its fight against dangerous space debris</a><br /><br /><a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/india-asat-test-marks-time-for-nations-to-make-new-space-treaty/articleshow/68607435.cms">It might be time for ‘space superpowers’ to bring in a new space treaty</a><br />

The trash in outer space makes way for a new kind of map

<ul class="summary-list"><li>NASA's <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-hubble-space-telescope-watches-distant-star-explode-and-die-2022-11">Hubble Space Telescope</a> is getting more satellites ruining its images, a new study found.</li><li>Elon Musk's <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/spacex-starlink-internet-never-intended-weaponized-ukraine-war-gwynne-shotwell-2023-2">Starlink</a> constellation is a major driver of satellite crowding in Earth's orbit.</li></ul><p><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/starlink-users-nervous-spacex-hike-prices-may-quit-internet-musk-2023-2">Starlink</a> satellites may pose a threat to future science from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope and other Earth-orbiting observatories.</p><p>The Starlink constellation now includes more than 3,000 satellites launched by SpaceX, as part of CEO <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/the-rise-of-elon-musk-2016-7">Elon Musk</a>'s vision to blanket Earth in high-speed broadband internet.</p><p>These satellites have already been <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/spacex-starlink-satellites-risks-astronomy-space-junk-2019-11">photobombing telescope observations on the ground</a>. But now even telescopes in space aren't safe anymore, according to a <a href="https://affiliate.insider.com?postID=6400dcc7c4cc6f68270fe1a1&amp;site=bi&amp;u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nature.com%2Farticles%2Fs41550-023-01903-3" target="_blank" rel="noopener">study</a> published Thursday in the journal Nature Astronomy.</p><p><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-hubble-space-telescope-photos-nebula-galaxies-universe-2021-6">Hubble images</a> streaked with white lines show the impact of just one satellite flying through the telescope's field of view.</p><div type="image" title="thick white satellite line streaks across black and white image of starry universe" height="1500" width="2000" msid="98398402" hostid="261" sizebytes="746080"></div><p>The proportion of Hubble images that look like this is increasing as <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-concerns-about-elon-musk-plan-30000-more-spacex-satellites-2022-2">more satellites fill Earth's orbit</a>, the study found.</p><p>Images like this can hamper astronomers' work, because the streaks block the distant galaxies and stars they're trying to study. For now, that's not a huge problem, according to NASA.</p><p>"Most of these streaks are readily removed using standard data reduction techniques, and the majority of affected images are still useable. Satellite streaks do not currently pose a significant threat to Hubble's science efficiency and data analysis," NASA spokesperson Claire Andreoli told Insider in an email.</p><div type="image" title="three white satellite lines streak across black and white image of starry universe" height="3072" width="4096" msid="98398404" hostid="261" sizebytes="4320924"></div><p>Sometimes removal methods help, and sometimes they don't, according to Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer at the Harvard–Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, who was not involved in the new study.</p><p>"It's certainly an overstatement to say that everything with a streak is ruined, but I think it's an understatement to say that it doesn't matter," he told Insider. "Some of them are not useable for the science purpose that they were meant for."</p><p>The proportion of satellite-damaged images could skyrocket in the next five years, forever changing our ability to study the cosmos from Earth's orbit.</p><h2>Hubble peers through a growing 'wall' between us and the universe</h2><div type="image" title="The Hubble Space Telescope launched in 1990 and has provided humanity a front-row seat to the cosmos for over three decades." height="1019" width="1359" msid="98398407" hostid="261" sizebytes="57442"></div><p>Over its three-decade reign, Hubble has fundamentally changed our understanding of the universe.</p><p>It allowed astronomers to calculate the age and expansion of the universe, track two interstellar objects zipping through our solar system, and peer at galaxies formed shortly after the Big Bang.</p><p>Even today, with the James Webb Space Telescope taking the spotlight, Hubble is still <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-hubble-space-telescope-watches-distant-star-explode-and-die-2022-11">discovering new events and objects</a> in the cosmos. It may have even more groundbreaking observations yet to come, as long as it can see the universe clearly.</p><div type="image" title="star eta carinae two lobes of pink purple gas in space" height="1500" width="2000" msid="98398409" hostid="261" sizebytes="97560"></div><p>Over time, Hubble has naturally sunk to lower altitudes. Earth's gravity has drawn the observatory deeper within the field of Starlink and other satellites.</p><p>The new study calculated that the chance of seeing a satellite in a Hubble image was 3.7% from 2009 to 2020, but climbed to 5.9% in 2021. That increase directly correlates to the rise of Starlink satellites, according to the study authors.</p><p>So far SpaceX has launched more than 3,000 Starlink satellites and plans to eventually maintain up to 42,000 satellites in orbit. That's an outrageously large number. For reference, there were about <a href="https://blog.ucsusa.org/syoung/the-meteoric-rise-in-satellite-numbers/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">1,000 operational satellites in orbit</a> in the year 2010.</p><div type="image" title="thin white satellite line streaks across black and white image of starry universe" height="2000" width="1997" msid="98398411" hostid="261" sizebytes="983948"></div><p>"Starlink is going to start dominating in the next couple years," McDowell said.</p><p>"It's just another brick in the wall between us and the universe," he added.</p><p>In the not-so-distant future, Earth's orbit could become so crowded that it no longer makes sense to put observatories like Hubble there anymore. NASA and other agencies may have to splurge to send their telescopes far away from interfering satellites — as far as Webb, which is about 1 million miles from Earth, roughly 3,000 times further than Hubble.</p><p>SpaceX did not immediately respond to a request for comment.</p><h2>Starlink could grow to mar one-third of Hubble's observations</h2><div type="image" title="white satellite line streaks across black and white image of starry universe" height="3072" width="4096" msid="98398413" hostid="261" sizebytes="2381056"></div><p>NASA has said it plans to continue operating Hubble until the mid-2030s. By then, the authors of the new study estimate, there could be 100,000 satellites in Earth's orbit, with a 33% chance that one will appear in an image from Hubble's wide-field instrument, and a 41% chance for the observatory's other key instrument, its survey camera.</p><p>That's about one-third of Hubble's observations "trashed," McDowell said. That would limit the amount of science Hubble can accomplish in the years it has left.</p><div type="image" title="two white satellite lines streak across black and white image of starry universe with bright spot in the corner" height="1500" width="2000" msid="98398415" hostid="261" sizebytes="647356"></div><p>"For every three observations you want, you actually have to make four observations because one of them is going to be hit," McDowell said. "And it could get worse than that. It could be like, 70% of the observations are ruined eventually, if you have enough satellites."</p><p>If SpaceX gets its <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/starship-spacex-elon-musk-reusable-rocket-mars-moon-launch-2023-2">Starship mega-rocket</a> up and running, the company will be able to launch more satellites, faster.</p><div type="image" title="A picture from the top of the rocket shows how high it is next to the landscape." height="1534" width="2045" msid="98398417" hostid="261" sizebytes="570532"></div><p>NASA and SpaceX announced last year that they were discussing the possibility of a <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-spacex-announcement-billionaire-spaceflight-hubble-space-telescope-2022-9">SpaceX mission to boost Hubble</a> into a higher orbit, but neither entity has shared updates since then.</p><p>"The study regarding the possibilities of reboosting Hubble is ongoing," Andreoli said.</p><h2>China's upcoming space telescope has a serious satellite problem</h2><div type="image" title="SpaceX's launch of Falcon 9 rocket lifts off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station" height="2740" width="3653" msid="98398420" hostid="261" sizebytes="251332"></div><p>For now, Hubble's Starlink problem is manageable, partly because the telescope uses a narrow field of vision. That allows it to pinpoint particular objects deep in the cosmos. So the odds are relatively low that a satellite will zip through such a small patch of sky while Hubble is looking.</p><p>But China is planning to launch its Xuntian telescope with a wide field of view into low-Earth orbit, among the satellites, at the end of this year, according to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/02/science/hubble-spacex-starlink.html">The New York Times</a>.</p><p>"I think that's going to have huge problems with Starlink and with other satellites," McDowell said.</p><div type="image" title="elon musk frowning smirking with hand on top of head wearing black occupy mars shirt" height="1499" width="1999" msid="98398422" hostid="261" sizebytes="138060"></div><p>Generally there are three possible futures for the growing crowd of satellites in Earth's orbit.</p><p>"There's a regime where it's annoying. There's a regime where it's expensive to work around. And then if you do enough of them, there's a regime in which you just basically can't operate anymore," McDowell said. "That's going to be self-limiting, because the satellites are going to start hitting each other, the companies are going to start losing money, and then they're going to decide to do something about it, finally."</p>

Elon Musk's Starlink satellites are ruining images from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, threatening future science

<ul class="summary-list"><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-postpones-astronauts-spacewalk-due-to-possible-space-junk-danger-2021-11">Space junk</a>, apparently from <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/debris-chinese-rocket-booster-plummeting-unknown-location-earth-2022-7">China</a> and a <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/space-debris-australia-farmland-likely-spacex-crew-1-astrophysicist-2022-8">SpaceX</a> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/images-show-james-webb-space-telescope-stronger-sharper-than-hubble-2022-7">NASA</a> mission, fell to Earth and <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/chinese-satellite-russian-rocket-piece-may-have-crashed-in-space-2021-8">crashed</a> on land.</li><li>There's a 10% chance a person will be hit by falling <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/international-space-station-swerves-to-avoid-rocket-debris-2021-12">space debris</a> within a decade, researchers calculated.</li></ul><p>It's raining rocket parts, and space-junk experts fear that someday a chunk of <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/debris-chinese-rocket-booster-plummeting-unknown-location-earth-2022-7">debris falling</a> from Earth's orbit will strike a person.</p><p>The booster of a 25-ton Long March 5B rocket, which pushed part of China's new space station into orbit in late July, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/debris-chinese-rocket-booster-plummeting-unknown-location-earth-2022-7">crashed back to Earth</a> on Saturday.</p><p>Though some of the booster probably burned up as it plummeted through Earth's atmosphere, <a href="https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=pfbid0Zk3ZGBFTEZ4DUdfcTsnTXtuSsPVBFDVdoKmX9GuMFKWxeTpbqut2E4VaAqatCuynl&amp;id=107175285204148">reports</a> indicate that parts of the rocket may have survived the fall and crashed near inhabited areas of Borneo, an island in Southeast Asia. Debris was found on both the Malaysian and Indonesian sides of the island, as well as in the ocean near the <a href="https://twitter.com/CNSAWatcher/status/1554514723843948544">Philippines</a>. The locations of the debris reports were along the path of the booster's reentry into the atmosphere, previously calculated by orbital-debris experts.</p><div type="image" title="large rounded metal sheet in a field surrounded by yellow tape and a handful of people" height="1344" width="2880" msid="93355966" hostid="261"></div><p>"They sure look like rocket parts to me," Ted Muelhaupt, a consultant for the Aerospace Corporation's Chief Engineer's Office, told Insider, adding, "I've got no reason to dispute that it's pieces of this rocket."</p><p>In July, a <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/space-debris-australia-farmland-likely-spacex-crew-1-astrophysicist-2022-8">shepherd in Australia</a> discovered a mysterious piece of debris sticking out of the ground, standing nearly 10 feet tall. On Wednesday, the Australian Space Agency <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/aug/03/spacex-capsule-confirmed-as-source-of-debris-that-landed-on-australian-farm">said</a> the giant piece of hardware came from the discarded trunk of a SpaceX Crew Dragon spaceship, which carried astronauts for NASA last year.</p><div type="image" title="A piece of space junk is shown on a field in Australia in New South Wales, Australia." height="1700" width="2542" msid="93355967" hostid="261"></div><p>Only China and SpaceX can confirm that these pieces come from their spacecraft. But experts like Muelhaupt say they believe the reports.</p><p>"There's no doubt in my mind," Jonathan McDowell, a Harvard astronomer who meticulously tracks objects in Earth's orbit, told Insider.</p><p>These are just a couple of striking examples of a widespread phenomenon. Every day, multiple man-made objects fall out of orbit and back to Earth, according to Muelhaupt, who works on the Aerospace Corporation's <a href="https://aerospace.org/reentries">reentry database</a>.</p><p>Many space objects burn up in the atmosphere, but chunks of material regularly survive the fall. Experts at the Aerospace Corporation say that up to 40% of the mass of a large space object falling from orbit will reach the ground. About once a week, an object that weighs at least 1 ton falls from orbit and reenters the atmosphere, Muelhaupt said.</p><p>In a <a href="https://affiliate.insider.com?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nature.com%2Farticles%2Fs41550-022-01718-8%23Sec5">study</a> published in the journal Nature in July, researchers calculated a roughly 10% chance that debris will strike one or more people within a 10-year period.</p><p>"If you roll the dice too many times, someone will get lucky," McDowell said.</p><h2>Crowded skies mean more falling space debris</h2><div type="image" title="Debris found in a field in new south Wales." height="1558" width="2078" msid="93355968" hostid="261"></div><p>Normally, after a launch, rocket boosters push themselves into the remotest part of the Pacific Ocean — a process called "controlled reentry." Smaller discarded objects, like the trunk of a Crew Dragon, are supposed to either burn up in the atmosphere or enter orbit around Earth and stay there.</p><p>But in the case of the Long March 5B, China didn't design the rocket booster for controlled reentry. Instead, it fell back to Earth randomly each of the three times it launched. In May 2020, debris from one of those rockets was discovered near two villages in Ivory Coast, reportedly causing <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/china-rocket-falling-earth-11-similar-space-station-2021-5">property damage</a>.</p><div type="image" title="Long March-5B Y2 rocket" height="1334" width="1778" msid="93355969" hostid="261"></div><p>The Long March 5B boosters are among the largest objects to fall back to Earth, but uncontrolled reentry isn't unique to China. In 1979, NASA's Skylab space station rapidly descended, scattering debris over Australia. Today, though, controlled reentry is standard practice.</p><p>Despite the uptick in space activity in recent years, defunct space objects are increasingly being brought down to Earth under control. "Whereas 30 years ago, a rocket stage would have been left in orbit and done an uncontrolled reentry some years later," McDowell said. </p><p>Still, Muelhaupt fears there will be more frequent falling-junk incidents — like the chunk of Crew Dragon that landed in Australia — in the future. In spaceflight, the standard acceptable level of risk to human life is one in 10,000. But when companies like SpaceX plan to launch tens of thousands of satellites into orbit, those odds mean a few of them will drop chunks of metal to Earth.</p><div type="image" title="Illustration of SpaceX's Starlink network of satellites." height="3588" width="4784" msid="93355971" hostid="261"></div><p>Between multiple companies launching satellite constellations and more space agencies flying spacecraft, there's an increasing chance that debris will land somewhere densely populated.</p><p>"You do it often enough, you do it long enough, you're going to get lucky and bring it down in the middle of a city park," Muelhaupt said. </p><h2>Taking out the space trash</h2><p>For now, the best way to prevent space-junk disaster is to convince all countries and companies to commit to practicing controlled reentry.</p><p>"The People's Republic of China did not share specific trajectory information as their Long March 5B rocket fell back to Earth," Bill Nelson, NASA's administrator, <a href="https://twitter.com/SenBillNelson/status/1553442428287328256">tweeted</a> Saturday, adding that all spacefaring nations should partake in responsible space behavior.</p><p>"Doing so is critical to the responsible use of space and to ensure the safety of people here on Earth," Nelson added.</p><div type="image" title="Support teams work around the SpaceX Crew-1 Dragon Resilience spacecraft shortly after it splashed down with astronauts from the International Space Station in May, 2021." height="2088" width="2784" msid="93355972" hostid="261"></div><p>Companies and space agencies can also study space debris to figure out why it fell from orbit, and why certain parts of it didn't burn up along the way. For example, Muelhaupt said the largest piece of suspected SpaceX debris in Australia is a section where metal connects to carbon fiber. Why that attachment broke from the rest of the spacecraft and survived the fiery plummet to Earth, is a question Muelhaupt wants answered.</p><p>"I hope they do go collect it and then tell us," Muelhaupt said.</p><p>A better understanding of debris falls could help inform real-time warning systems, both for people on the ground and for people flying planes. With passenger planes crisscrossing the planet at all times, there should be a space-debris notice for pilots, Muelhaupt said. A collision is unlikely, but if it did happen the damage would be catastrophic, especially for a commercial flight with passengers.</p><p>"The odds of hitting an unprotected individual standing in the open is one thing, but you get an aircraft in flight, now suddenly the consequences are a lot bigger," Muelhaupt said.</p><p>He fears it will take a disaster to push regulators and companies to make real change, though.</p><p>"I hate to say it: When something bad happens to somebody, that's when we react," Muelhaupt said.</p>

Photos suggest SpaceX, NASA, and China space junk struck land. There's a 10% chance a person will be hit this decade.

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Japanese company <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/space-debris-junk-orbit-airbus-clearspace-astroscale-nasa-esa-contracts-2021-2">Astroscale</a> launched a magnetic satellite as a demo of a space junk clean-up effort.</li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-unknown-orbital-debris-narrowly-missed-striking-iss-avoidance-maneuver-2020-9">Space junk</a> rockets around Earth faster than bullets, threatening <keyword id="41530" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="60" keywordseo="satellites">satellites</keyword> and the space station.</li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/soviet-satellite-chinese-rocket-might-crash-in-space-2020-10">Dead satellites</a> are the greatest threats, but there are few efforts to get rid of them.</li></ul><p>Earth's <keyword id="6375157" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="Orbit">orbit</keyword> desperately needs someone to take out the trash. A Japanese company is trying to keep the problem from getting worse.</p><p>The company, called Astroscale, has designed a spacecraft with a magnetic plate that can attach to dead satellites - as long as they have the other side of the magnet. That enables it to pull the satellites into a freefall, burning up both the spacecraft and its satellite passenger in Earth's atmosphere.</p><p>The first version of this technology is called the End-of-Life Services by Astroscale demonstration mission, or ELSA-d, and it launched from Kazakhstan on Monday. The spacecraft carries a fake piece of "<keyword id="943402" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="Space-Debris">space debris</keyword>" with the necessary magnetic plate built in. The plan calls for ELSA-d to release this fake debris then practice grabbing it while both are in orbit.</p><p>In the future, satellite companies could build this type of magnetic docking plate into their own spacecraft and hire Astroscale to remove satellites from orbit when they go defunct.</p><p>"This is an incredible moment, not only for our team, but for the entire satellite servicing industry, as we work towards maturing the debris-removal market and ensuring the responsible use of our orbits," Nobu Okada, Astroscale Founder and CEO, said in a <a href="https://astroscale.com/astroscales-elsa-d-mission-ready-for-launch-from-baikonur-cosmodrome-on-saturday-march-20/">statement</a>.</p><p>In other words, as the company <a href="https://twitter.com/astroscale_HQ/status/1373901748230754304">tweeted</a> after launch: "Let the era of space sustainability begin."</p><p>However, existing space junk doesn't have built-in magnetic plates compatible with Astroscale's new spacecraft. According to the <a href="https://www.esa.int/Safety_Security/Space_Debris/Space_debris_by_the_numbers">European Space Agency</a>, more than 2,400 dead satellites and 100 million bits of debris are already circling Earth - space junk that ELSA-d cannot clean up.</p><p>As Earth's orbit gets <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/spacex-starlink-internet-satellites-percent-failure-rate-space-debris-risk-2020-10">more and more congested</a>, this space trash becomes more likely to crash, and those collisions can then send new clouds of metal chunks careening around the planet. Over time, such collisions could create a thick belt of debris that, in a worst-case scenario, may cut off access to outer space.</p><h2>Space collisions create 'gunshot blasts' of high-speed debris</h2><div type="image" title="rocket body explosions illustration space debris junk esa" height="2480" width="3508" msid="81654516" hostid="261"></div><p>Even tiny bits of space debris are dangerous, since they zip around the planet at roughly 10 times the speed of a bullet. Last year, the International Space Station had to maneuver away from space debris on three occasions, since a collision could endanger the astronauts on board.</p><p>But the largest pieces of space junk - the dead satellites and discarded rocket husks - pose the greatest collision risk.</p><p>In October, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/soviet-satellite-chinese-rocket-might-crash-in-space-2020-10">a defunct Soviet satellite and an old Chinese rocket body passed alarmingly close together</a>. Since nobody could control either spacecraft, there was no way to prevent a collision.</p><p>Luckily, the objects did not crash. But if they had, astronomer <a href="https://twitter.com/planet4589/status/1316792122616545288">Jonathan McDowell</a> calculated it would have produced an explosion roughly equivalent to detonating 14 metric tons of TNT and sent chunks of spacecraft rocketing in all directions.</p><p>Prior to that, in January 2020, two dead satellites <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-air-force-satellites-might-crash-in-space-over-pittsburgh-2020-1">almost crossed paths</a> and exploded into hundreds of thousands of bits of debris.</p><p>If they'd collided, that would have been like replacing "two satellites with essentially two shotgun blasts of debris," Dan Ceperley, the CEO of satellite-tracking company LeoLabs, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-air-force-satellites-might-crash-in-space-over-pittsburgh-2020-1">told Insider at the time</a>. </p><p>Scientists have observed real collisions in space as well. In 2007, China tested an anti-satellite missile by <a href="https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/chinas-anti-satellite-test" target="_blank" rel="noopener">obliterating one of its own weather satellites</a>. Two years later, one American and one Russian spacecraft accidentally collided. Those two events alone increased the amount of large debris in low-Earth orbit <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/centers/hq/library/find/bibliographies/space_debris">by about 70%</a>.</p><p>Then when India conducted its own anti-satellite missile test in 2019, the explosion created an estimated <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/india-anti-satellite-missile-test-space-debris-cloud-2019-3">6,500 pieces of debris</a> larger than an eraser.</p><div type="image" title="india anti satellite missile asat test mission shakti space debris junk cloud field orbit simulation march 2019 analytical graphics inc 2" height="902" width="1202" msid="81654519" hostid="261"></div><p>All in all, more than 500 such "fragmentation events" have created nearly <a href="https://www.esa.int/Safety_Security/Space_Debris/Space_debris_by_the_numbers" target="_blank" rel="noopener">130 million</a> bits of debris in Earth's orbit.</p><h2>Out-of-control orbital debris could cut off humans' access to space</h2><p>If the space-junk problem gets extreme, a chain of collisions could spiral out of control and surround Earth in a practically <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/space-junk-kessler-syndrome-chain-reaction-prevention-2018-3">impassable field of debris</a>. This possibility is known as the <keyword id="9199608" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="kessler-syndrome">Kessler syndrome</keyword>, after Donald J. Kessler, who worked for NASA's Johnson Space Center and calculated in a 1978 paper that it could take hundreds or even thousands of years for such debris to clear enough to make spaceflight safe again.</p><p>"It is a long-term effect that takes place over decades and centuries," Ted Muelhaupt, who leads The Aerospace Corporation's satellite system analysis, previously <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-air-force-satellites-might-crash-in-space-over-pittsburgh-2020-1">told</a> Insider. "Anything that makes a lot of debris is going to increase that risk."</p><p>The sheer number of objects in Earth's orbit may already be having a Kessler-like effect. Experts say that space congestion has gotten significantly worse since companies like SpaceX began launching large fleets of internet satellites into orbit.</p><p>"This has a massive impact on the launch side," Rocket Lab CEO Peter Beck told <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/07/business/rocket-lab-debris-launch-traffic-scn/index.html">CNN Business</a> in October. He added that rockets "have to try and weave their way up in between these [satellite] constellations."</p><p>Astroscale aims to help ensure that dead, uncontrollable satellites don't wind up lurking inside those constellations.</p><h2>Some companies may clean up old space junk</h2><p><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/space-debris-junk-orbit-airbus-clearspace-astroscale-nasa-esa-contracts-2021-2">A few companies</a> have already expressed an interest in or commitment to cleaning up some existing space junk.</p><p>ClearSpace, based in Switzerland, recently <a href="https://www.esa.int/Newsroom/Press_Releases/Call_for_Media_ESA_and_ClearSpace_SA_sign_contract_for_world_s_first_debris_removal_mission">signed a contract</a> with the European Space Agency to remove part of an old Vega rocket from orbit in 2025. Airbus, meanwhile, has <a href="https://www.sstl.co.uk/media-hub/latest-news/2019/removedebris-success-for-harpoon-experiment">tested</a> satellite-capture methods using a harpoon and a net. </p><p>Astroscale's demo mission aims to test its magnet strategy. Shortly after separating from its "space junk" prototype, ELSA-d will try to re-capture it. If that basic maneuver goes well, the spacecraft will try more complicated tasks: Astroscale will instruct the debris prototype to tumble, spinning like a dead satellite normally would. That will force the ELSA-d spacecraft to assess it target and line up with the prototype's docking magnet.</p><p>Once the demonstration is done, the plan is for ELSA-d and its captured "debris" to plunge into the atmosphere to meet a fiery demise.</p><p>No company so far has a large-scale space clean-up in its sights, though.</p><p>SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell has <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/spacex-starship-could-help-clean-up-space-junk-in-orbit-2020-11">said</a> that the company's mega-spaceship, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/spacex-to-launch-starship-prototype-sn11-watch-live-2021-3">Starship</a>, could one day be put to the task. But for now, the number of objects in Earth's orbit is growing every year.</p>

A magnetic spacecraft that can attract dead satellites has entered orbit - a test in a new effort to clean up space junk

<br /><br /><ul><li>The <keyword id="59844" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="20" keywordseo="European-Space-Agency">European Space Agency</keyword> plans to use a four-armed robot to drag <keyword id="943402" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Space-Debris">space debris</keyword> back to Earth.<br /></li><li>The robot will launch into space, wrap itself around the target, and fall back to Earth in a controlled descent.<br /></li><li>The robot called Chaser has been developed by a Swiss start-up called <keyword id="8428979" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="clearspace">ClearSpace</keyword>.<br /></li></ul>The European Space Agency (ESA) has a plan to clean up Earth's orbit — one satellite at a time. A four-armed robot — the Chaser — will launch into space and drag space debris back to Earth in a blaze of glory.<br /><br />The robot, developed by a Swiss startup called <a href="https://clearspace.today/">ClearSpace</a>, will first be tested in Earth's lower 500-kilometre orbit and by 2025, ESA plans to start delegating official targets — the first of which will be Vespa, the secondary payload adapter of ESA's Vega launch in 2013.<br /><br />It's not an actually a satellite but it's around the same size and shape — ideal for ESA's ClearSpace Mission-1.<br /><br />Chaser, once launched into space, will wrap itself around the chosen piece of space trash and fall back towards Earth in a controlled, but fiery, descent.<br /><br /><div type="image" title="Artist impression, ClearSpace-1 with captured Vespa" msid="72470057" hostid="261" caption="&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;Artist impression, ClearSpace-1 with captured Vespa&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;"></div>

<br /><br />The objective is to actively participate in cleaning up space, while also <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/us-russia-china-and-india-standoff-over-space-debris-after-a-sat-test/articleshow/70837355.cms">setting an example</a> of the kind of technology that's needed to do so, according to the <a href="https://www.esa.int/Newsroom/Press_Releases/ESA_commissions_world_s_first_space_debris_removal">agency</a>.<br /><br />"NASA and ESA studies show that the only way to stabilise the orbital environment is to actively remove large debris items… This new mission, implemented by an ESA project team, will allow us to demonstrate these technologies, achieving a world first in the process," said <a href="https://www.esa.int/Newsroom/Press_Releases/ESA_commissions_world_s_first_space_debris_removal">Luisa Innocenti</a>, head of ESA's Clean Space initiative.<br /><br /><strong>The growing threat of space debris<br /></strong><br />Earth's immediate orbit is already home to around 20,000 objects — and it's only going to get <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/the-trash-in-outer-space-makes-way-for-a-new-kind-of-map/articleshow/69751105.cms">more crowded</a>. Governments are sending up an increasing amount of radar technology in the name of <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/science/space/news/isro-risat-2br1-spy-satellite-surveillance-along-borders/articleshow/72454280.cms">self-defence</a>. SpaceX launching <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/science/space/news/elon-musks-spacex-wants-to-launch-30000-satellites-and-researchers-are-worried/articleshow/71627121.cms">thousands of satellites</a> to deliver global access to the internet. <br /><br />"In the coming years the number of satellites will increase by an order of magnitude, with multiple mega-constellations made up of hundreds or even thousands of satellites planned for low Earth orbit to deliver wide-coverage, low-latency telecommunications and monitoring services," said <a href="https://www.esa.int/Newsroom/Press_Releases/ESA_commissions_world_s_first_space_debris_removal">Luc Piget</a>, founder and CEO of ClearSpace.<br /><br /><div type="image" title="spacedebris" msid="72470071" hostid="261" caption="&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;Animation of space debris around Earth&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;"></div>

<br /><br />The market for satellite space launches is set to hit $30 billion by 2026, according to <a href="https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/space-launch-services-market-to-reach-30-01-bn-globally-by-2026-at-17-2-cagr-allied-market-research-300934694.html">Allied Market Research</a>. It's growing at an average annual rate of 17.2%. More countries are coming into the space exploration fold and companies are looking to be self-dependent while expanding the range of services that they can provide. <br /><br />"Even if all space launches were halted tomorrow, projections show that the overall orbital debris population will continue to grow, as collisions between items generate fresh debris in a cascade effect," said Innocenti.<br /><br /><strong>The threat that already exists<br /></strong><br />Nevermind the risk of these objects accidentally colliding with each other, there's already a ton of junk <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/new-grading-system-for-satellite-launches/articleshow/69230966.cms">lying in wait</a>. Earth's Lower Earth Orbit (LEO) is home to more than 3,000 defunct satellites and millions of smaller pieces of debris. To make matters worse, all of these pieces are flying around at thousands of kilometres per hour.<br /><br />"Imagine how dangerous sailing the high seas would be if all the ships ever lost in history were still drifting on top of the water," said ESA Director General Jan Wörner.<br /><br />According to Piuget, what Earth needs is an outer space ‘tow truck' to remove the trash from Earth's largest garbage dump.<br /><br /><div type="Youtube" id="-LL1MBpTN4w" title="Distribution of space debris in orbit around Earth" thumbUrl="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/-LL1MBpTN4w/mqdefault.jpg"></div>

<br /><br /><strong>See also:<br /></strong><a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/isro-to-set-up-own-space-debris-agency-because-norad-data-inaccurate/articleshow/70550082.cms">India doesn't trust US with measuring space debris — and so it will set up its own agency</a><br /><br /><a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/the-trash-in-outer-space-makes-way-for-a-new-kind-of-map/articleshow/69751105.cms">The trash in outer space makes way for a new kind of map</a><br /><br /><a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/new-grading-system-for-satellite-launches/articleshow/69230966.cms">A new space debris grading system could keep countries from cluttering up outer space</a><br />

Europe wants to use a suicidal robot to clean up space — one satellite at a time

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Landfills are a large driver of the climate crisis due to their high methane leaks.</li><li>A recent study found methane emissions from landfills were 40% higher than reported.</li></ul><p>Rotting <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/sell-by-best-before-dates-mean-nothing-create-food-waste-2024-3">food scraps</a> and other waste that piles up in landfills across the country are a larger driver of the climate crisis than previously known.</p><p>Methane leaks from landfills were, on average, 40% higher than what's been reported to the federal government, according to <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="c-link" href="https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adi7735">a study published in the journal Science</a>.</p><p>Researchers flew airplanes over more than 200 active landfills in the US, or about 20% of the total, between 2018 and 2022 in the largest assessment of the industry to date. Spectrometers detected methane plumes at more than half of those landfills, with most leaking the gas for months, if not years. The plumes were more persistent than those found in the oil and gas sector, which has <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/cop28-un-climate-conference-oil-and-gas-methane-emissions-satellites-2023-12">come under increasing scrutiny</a> in recent years.</p><p>Climate scientists say that slashing methane emissions from oil and gas, landfills, and livestock is one of the fastest ways to slow the climate crisis because the gas has 80 times the warming power of carbon dioxide over two decades.</p><p>Landfills are considered the third-largest source of human-caused methane emissions in the US — behind agriculture and oil and gas. But estimates for landfills are based on computer models and not actual observations, said Dan Cusworth, project scientist at Carbon Mapper and lead author of the study.</p><p>"Bridging that gap is critical," Cusworth said. "It will help mitigate emissions and also validate whether various climate efforts are having the intended impacts."</p><div type="image" title="An infrared imaging spectrometer inside an airplane." height="3024" width="4032" msid="108916938" hostid="261" sizebytes="983038"></div><p>Landfill workers currently do walking surveys with handheld sensors to detect methane hot spots. But that method is prone to error and only required once a quarter, Cusworth said. Waste sites can also span thousands of acres and can be dangerous to traverse, especially in areas where trash is being dumped.</p><p>More advanced methods, like remote sensing from satellites, aircraft, and drones, can deliver a more accurate picture of the methane problem at landfills. The sources of emissions vary. Many large landfills capture methane gas so it can be reused as energy, but that infrastructure can leak. When food waste decomposes, it releases the gas.</p><p>More timely detection can help landfill operators fix leaks faster, benefiting the planet.</p><p>Carbon Mapper notified environmental regulators in Southern California and <a target="_blank" href="http://www.paenvironmentdigest.com/newsletter/default.asp?NewsletterArticleID=57582&amp;SubjectID=">Pennsylvania about the methane leaks</a> it detected. In response, officials notified landfill operators so they could reduce emissions.</p><p>Carbon Mapper aims to launch a constellation of satellites measuring methane and carbon dioxide in partnership with NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the climate nonprofit RMI, and others. The methane satellite is expected to be launched this year.</p><p>"Our goal is to launch many of these satellites so we can capture a large swath of global landfill sites, as well as oil and gas sites, to really identify the point-source, facility scale emissions," Cusworth said.</p><p>The Environmental Defense Fund <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/spacex-launches-methanesat-track-global-methane-leaks-03-2024">similarly launched a methane satellite</a> with Space X in March that will police the oil and gas industry.</p>

Landfills are spewing even more methane into the atmosphere than we thought

<ul class="summary-list"><li>NASA's TIMED satellite narrowly avoided colliding with Russia's dead Cosmos 2221 spacecraft this week.</li><li>In the worst-case scenario, the collision would have ejected 7,500 bits of debris into low-Earth orbit.</li></ul><p>Two satellites nearly collided in space on Wednesday in a harrowing encounter that <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/spacex-boeing-space-startups-satellite-orbit-stock-companies-to-watch-2021-6">LeoLabs</a>, a satellite tracking company, called "too close for comfort."</p><p>NASA's Thermosphere Ionosphere Mesosphere Energetics and Dynamics (TIMED) satellite passed by <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/russian-satellite-breaks-up-orbit-space-debris-could-last-century-2023-2">Russia's</a> inoperative Cosmos 2221 spacecraft at a distance of less than 65 feet. That's shorter than the length of a tennis court.</p><p>Both of these satellites are non-maneuverable, meaning neither the US or Russia have control over where they go.</p><p>If they had collided, it could have decimated both satellites, blasting 2,500 to 7,500 fragments of <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/rocket-satellite-metals-polluting-earth-stratosphere-2023-10">space junk</a> into Earth's orbit that would now be zooming around our planet at thousands of miles per hour, faster than bullets.</p><p>The fragments wouldn't have posed a danger to life on Earth, as any that penetrated our atmosphere would have burned up during free fall.</p><p>But it would have threatened <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/hypersonic-plane-startups-pulling-millions-from-vcs-venture-capital-2022-6">future spaceflight</a> and astronaut lives since the resulting debris could have made navigating low-Earth orbit far more treacherous.</p><p>"There are 'bad neighborhoods' where these massive derelicts are accumulating preferentially," LeoLabs' Senior Technical Fellow Darren McKnight told Business Insider in an email.</p><p>Avoiding collisions in these congested areas is becoming increasingly difficult as the amount of <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/manmade-object-satellite-outshines-nearly-every-star-night-sky-space-2023-10">objects in Earth's orbit</a> grows each year.</p><h2>Earth's orbit is getting overcrowded</h2><div type="image" title="Graph of spatial density of non-operational objects in low-Earth orbit." height="949" width="1049" msid="108147879" hostid="261" sizebytes="28668"></div><p>Near-collisions between large space objects like this are rare, but it only takes one to completely change the landscape of Earth's orbit and endanger countless other satellites, space telescopes, and even the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-unknown-orbital-debris-narrowly-missed-striking-iss-avoidance-maneuver-2020-9">International Space Station</a>.</p><p>For example, two satellite collisions that occurred in 2007 and 2009, respectively, increased the amount of large debris in low-Earth orbit by roughly 70%.</p><p>And with the advent of mega-constellations of internet satellites, such as <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/ukraine-spacex-trying-to-stop-russia-using-starlink-2024-2">SpaceX's Starlink</a> and <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-launches-deal-project-kuiper-satellites-blue-origin-ula-arianespace-2022-4">Amazon's Kuiper</a>, the number of objects in low-Earth orbit is growing more and more each year, increasing the risk of collisions.</p><div type="image" title="side-by-side images of objects in LEO" height="751" width="1433" msid="108147880" hostid="261" sizebytes="148278"></div><p>In 2007, scientists estimated about 10,000 low-Earth objects. By 2021, that number had doubled. And most of it isn't even useful — it's space junk.</p><p>Roughly 70% is debris from damaged or defunct rockets, satellites, and nonoperational payloads, according to LeoLabs.</p><p>That's just what's cataloged, though.</p><p>The European Space Agency <a target="_blank" href="https://www.esa.int/Space_Safety/Space_Debris/Space_debris_by_the_numbers">estimates</a> that nearly 1 million bits of debris between 1 cm-10 cm are circling Earth, with another 130 million bits even smaller than that.</p><p>Space junk is so pervasive the International Space Station sometimes has to navigate around it.</p><div type="image" title="hole in Endeavor space shuttle caused by debris" height="358" width="480" msid="108147881" hostid="261" sizebytes="34636"></div><p>In March 2023, the ISS dodged objects twice in one month, once to avoid a collision with a satellite and then again to maneuver around debris just a few days later.</p><p>Even the tiniest debris can damage the space station and endanger astronauts, though no astronaut has lost their life due to space debris (yet).</p><h2>The race to clean up space</h2><p>The consequences of space debris are very real, so much so, that the worst-case scenario has a name: <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/space-junk-kessler-syndrome-chain-reaction-prevention-2018-3">Kessler syndrome</a>.</p><p>In this scenario, a collision sets off a chain reaction, generating a catastrophic domino effect that produces so much space debris, no spacecraft can safely leave Earth for hundreds or even thousands of years.</p><div type="image" title="Illustration of space junk floating around Earth" height="1299" width="2309" msid="108147883" hostid="261" sizebytes="181986"></div><p>However, preventing collisions today can offset a possible Kessler syndrome scenario in the future. And some governments and private companies have begun to address the problem.</p><p>New space-industry norms and even <a target="_blank" href="https://www.unoosa.org/oosa/en/ourwork/topics/space-debris/compendium.html">policies</a> in some countries are prompting satellite operators to design their spacecraft to self-destruct when they die, by pushing themselves into a free fall that causes them to burn up in the atmosphere.</p><p>Last year the Federal Communications Commission — the US agency that regulates most communications satellites — took its first-ever enforcement action related to space debris when it fined Dish Network $150,000 for <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/dish-network-fined-first-ever-fcc-enforcement-against-space-junk-2023-10">failing to properly dispose of a retired satellite</a>.</p><p>Some governments seem less concerned. Both <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/india-missile-shoots-down-satellite-space-debris-junk-risk-2019-3">India</a> and <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/us-condemns-irresponsible-russian-anti-satellite-test-threatening-space-station-2021-11">Russia</a> have tested anti-satellite missiles by destroying their own satellites in orbit, creating new clouds of debris.</p><p>As for old, inoperable spacecraft that are roaming loose in orbit, like Cosmos 2221, NASA is outsourcing research and development to private companies to collect them.</p><p>In September 2023, the space agency <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/transastra-wins-nasa-contract-pick-up-space-trash-with-bags-2023-9">awarded $850,000 to TransAstra</a> for their concept of "Flytrap" space debris capture bags — basically, giant high-tech trash bags that would scoop up a lot of space junk.</p><div type="image" title="TransAstra space debris capture tech" height="731" width="1300" msid="108147884" hostid="261" sizebytes="33344"></div><p>Outside of the US, other companies are coming up with their own innovative disposal solutions. The <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/astroscale-mission-to-clean-up-space-junk-magnets-2021-3">Japanese company Astroscale</a> designed a spacecraft with a magnetic plate that can attach to dead satellites and pull them into a free fall.</p><p>But these space clean-up technologies are still in testing. The European Space Agency plans to be the first to remove a piece of debris from Earth's orbit with its Clearspace-1 mission, scheduled to launch in 2026.</p><p>Meanwhile, LeoLabs hopes that its precision data on objects in orbit will help satellite operators foresee and avoid near-collisions like the one that happened Wednesday.</p>

A dead Russian spacecraft almost collided with a NASA satellite. The crash could have sent 7,500 bits of debris rocketing around Earth.

The life-changing power of the strike: How 500,000 workers refused to work in 2023 — and won big

<p class="enhanced-subtitle">How every American city became exactly the same</p><p class="drop-cap">Cities across America are undergoing big changes. The shift to remote work early in the pandemic allowed <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/28/nyregion/wealthy-pandemic-nyc.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">wealthy residents to ditch big cities in droves</a> and set up shop in smaller cities and towns nearby. This mass reshuffling caused huge spikes and dips in populations, and nearly every locale across the country has felt the impact at some point. For instance, the Hudson Valley — the constellation of small cities and towns north of New York City — saw a massive influx in 2021 of <a href="https://www.realestateindepth.com/news/pattern-study-confirms-nyc-migration-to-hudson-valley/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">over 30,000 residents</a> who ditched their Manhattan apartments for farmhouses. Midsize cities across the US like Austin, Texas and Charlotte, North Carolina have seen a similar <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/zoom-town-inequality-remote-workers-work-from-home-big-cities-2022-4">boom in newcomers</a>. Now that the dust is settling, increased rents and the stickiness of working from home have pushed small and midsize cities to adjust to a new normal.</p><p>While the surging <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/remote-workers-moving-to-zoomtowns-southwest-cities-drought-no-water-2022-10">costs of housing</a> and the new freedom of remote work helped trigger this mass migration, small cities have been laying the groundwork over the last decade to entice these big-city refugees. The new playbook for up-and-coming metros, which I detailed in my book, "The City Authentic: How the Attention Economic Builds Urban America," is to engineer the entire city to produce the kind of amenities that middle- and high-income workers have come to expect from an urban neighborhood — walkable downtowns, diverse restaurants, craft-brew pubs — at a fraction of the price. These cities want to convince potential transplants that they <em>can </em>have it all. "To a growing degree," the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/05/15/upshot/migrations-college-super-cities.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">New York Times</a> recently reported about those leaving large metros, "what they left behind they can find in Charlotte, Denver, Minneapolis, Salt Lake City, Dallas or Louisville." </p><p>But these urban-renewal projects come with a dark side. Sure, they have been successful in attracting young professionals to what were once considered second- or third-tier cities, but they have also turned cities across the US into replicas of each other. In their attempts to stand out, many places have started to look exactly the same. </p><h2><strong>A fight over the creative class</strong></h2><p>Most people don't think of the 1988 Tim Burton film "Beetlejuice" as a tale about urban development. But the Deetzes, a family who moves into a newly-haunted house, are a classic 1980s striver couple — a real-estate agent and a self-described artist — who can't help but transform everything in their sleepy Connecticut town into some sort of consumable experience for city folk just like them. While perhaps a bit overdone, the Deetzes are the perfect pop-culture example of the type of people cities have been trying to attract for the past 40 years.</p><p>As America's manufacturing jobs shifted abroad and city governments cut back on investment in the 1980s and 1990s, the finance, insurance, and real-estate industries emerged as the biggest business concerns in urban America. Unlike factory work, these businesses employed fewer, better-paid, white-collar office workers who had much more flexibility in where and when they worked. This burgeoning "creative class," as the urban-studies theorist and professor Richard Florida called them in his 2002 book, "The Rise of the Creative Class," was composed of graphic designers, web developers, and marketing professionals. The most creative and economically successful cities, Florida argued, were ones that catered to the lifestyles of these highly mobile professionals. In response, cities across the globe sought to establish cosmopolitan downtowns that would be welcoming to upper-class creatives.</p><p>Smaller cities, meanwhile, struggled to attract good employers and develop successful entrepreneurs. In 2017, Florida wrote "The New Urban Crisis," which admitted that the approach he spearheaded had significantly contributed to a "<a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/27119057" target="_blank" rel="noopener">winner-take-all urbanism</a>": Big cities grew, but small and medium cities withered.</p><p>Then came the pandemic, and remote work suddenly made small cities a viable home for wealthy professionals. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/05/15/upshot/migrations-college-super-cities.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The New York Times </a>reported in May that the middle class was being priced out of big cities, which, collectively, lost over 200,000 people in 2021. After a 40-year march to a few major urban centers, the eyes of the "creative class" began to wander across the map. Many workers relocated to cities of less than a quarter of a million people, a class of city that hasn't seen a net increase in population in over a decade. But the cities that were able to capitalize on this shift were the ones that executed on what I call the "city authentic" playbook. </p><h2><strong>The rise of influencer cities</strong></h2><p>Beyond jobs, cities also have the ability to attract residents by being, well, attractive. At the turn of the 20th century, the "city beautiful" movement launched: Governments and businesses built massive, ornate buildings in an effort to attract further investment. For example, the Washington, DC we know today — from the grand National Mall to the iconic neoclassical buildings — wasn't formally laid out until 1902 as part of this movement. </p><p>The second such movement was the "city efficient" model, which leveraged Space Age technologies to modernize cities with precise engineering and strict use-based zoning laws. The national-highway system is perhaps the most transformative example, but this movement also gave us the modern steel-and-glass skyscraper. </p><p>For the past two decades, cities have turned to an economic development strategy I've deemed "the city authentic." The new movement is largely predicated on nostalgia and the fetishization of "the local." The pitch that cities using the "city authentic" playbook make, regardless of their particular amenities, is fairly similar: Their city is the "thrift-store find," compared to the mainstream brand of major metropolises. They have old architecture that has been transformed into new, trendy offerings — all for a cheaper price. </p><blockquote class="pullquote-wrapper pullquote-breakout"><q class="pullquote-quotation">The aging buildings' authenticity reassures millennials that they are not living in their parents' cookie-cutter suburbs. They are experiencing something real. Their brunch means something.</q></blockquote><p>An ad from the Fulton County Industrial Development Agency, or IDA, in upstate New York highlights its "historic, grand buildings that feature distinctive architecture, 100-year-old brick, and hardwood floors, surrounded by plentiful and free parking." In a <a href="https://www.southernliving.com/travel/georgia/athens-ga" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Southern Living write up</a> from last year, Athens, Georgia — a town of 120,000 — boasts that "an old tire company is now a favorite brewery and farmers' market. A kudzu-covered former cotton warehouse returns as an arts district," while the <a href="https://365publicationsonline.com/AthensNCG2021" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Athens Quality of Life Guide</a> emphasizes that median rents are "$200 less than the national average." Tulsa, Oklahoma even <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-pick-right-city-work-from-home-remote-employee-2022-6">offered $10,000</a> to anyone who would move there for remote work — touting the city's "revitalized Arts District that boasts hip coffee shops, vegan taco joints, steakhouse speakeasies, whiskey bars, art galleries, coworking spaces, and a software-development school." In other words, these cities offer relative affordability without sacrificing the hip feel of an urban neighborhood. </p><p>In a post-industrial economy such as ours, whether a city can attract new residents and investments can mean life or death for its local economy. But the challenge for cities following this playbook is balancing uniqueness and approachability. There is immense pressure to, paradoxically, fit in and stand out. Most square this circle with predictably unique cultural offerings: Craft breweries that offer the same litany of IPAs and lagers, but with each one named after something local; food halls with the same overpriced plates and decadent bloody marys, but everything is made locally; and, as Fulton county's IDA would like us to remember, it is all contained within beautiful brownstones and Victorians that were spared urban renewal's bulldozers. Years of neglect are turned into an asset because the aging buildings' authenticity reassures millennials that they are not living in their parents' cookie-cutter suburbs. They are experiencing something real. Their brunch means something.</p><div type="image" title="Industrial-looking Cafe Biaggio in St Paul, Minneapolis" height="1915" width="2553" msid="102107498" hostid="261"></div><p>And, because so much of how we persuade and influence each other happens online, cities are increasingly making that case on social media with the help of influencers. Whether a dive bar or an entire neighborhood is perceived as unique and on-trend has a lot to do with how it circulates online. Social media and its attendant influencer industry have significantly changed how cities promote themselves. Ignoring the conflicting struggles that characterize the history of America's downtowns, the city authentic weathers that history down to a safe, entertaining story told through predictably unique experiences, menu items, and interior designs. All of which are meant to both stand out just enough to recognizably fit into the categories, genres, and vibes organized by social media's algorithms.  </p><p>Real-estate agents now feel the pressure to up their Instagram game to promote not just their properties, but an entire market. It's considered a dereliction of duty if your downtown Business Improvement District doesn't have a social-media plan and someone to execute it. And, whether they're home-grown or hired from an agency, being featured on an influencer's account is a common tactic to raise a city's profile among young professionals. When the influencer chef Alison Roman needed to escape both COVID and a high-profile spat with Chrissy Teigen, she decamped for upstate New York, and <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/12/20/alison-roman-just-cant-help-herself" target="_blank" rel="noopener">subsequent interviews</a> touted her investments in out-of-the-way Bloomsville, New York. Some influencers have even gone so far as to <a href="https://www.thecut.com/2018/06/rookie-founder-tavi-gevinson-ends-sponsorship-with-apartment.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">make their own apartment</a> sponsored content.</p><h2><strong>Tired replicas</strong></h2><p>While there is economic relief for those leaving the big cities for chic and affordable spots, it's not all rosé brunches and glamping. There are real challenges and even a few dangers to using the "city authentic" playbook. As big-city high-earners move into town, landlords and restaurateurs immediately move to cater to them, raising prices and accommodating new tastes, which pushes out locals. As I demonstrate in my book, in upstate New York, Rensselaer county's population only went up 1% between 2010 and 2019, but median gross rent went up 25% over the same time span. It spiked even more during the pandemic when change of addresses from New York City <a href="https://www.timesunion.com/news/article/new-york-city-residents-relocate-upstate-16070020.php" target="_blank" rel="noopener">jumped a whopping 787%</a>.</p><p>I used to rent a one bedroom for $600 a month when I first moved to Troy, in Rensselaer County, in 2010. Since then, the availability of housing in that price range has gone down by 36%. And this trend is happening <a href="https://flagpole.com/news/news-features/2022/09/14/why-rents-and-home-prices-have-gotten-so-high-in-athens/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">all across</a> <a href="https://www.kjrh.com/news/local-news/study-2-45-billion-needed-to-successfully-combat-tulsa-housing-crisis" target="_blank" rel="noopener">the US</a>, threatening to make it impossible for essential workers like nurses, cooks, and teachers to live anywhere near where they work. The nine counties immediately north of New York City may have absorbed a lot of high-earning city folk, but even more <a href="https://www.pattern-for-progress.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/PfP-Migration-Report-2023.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">people left the region</a> due to rising prices, resulting in a small net loss of population between 2019 and 2020. </p><div type="image" title="People on the deck of a brewery in Atlanta, Georgia" height="3435" width="4594" msid="102107501" hostid="261"></div><p>And as the local haunts are replaced by Instagramable cafés and art galleries, the city feels less like home and more like someone else's lifestyle brand. The pressures to be predictably unique can suffocate the distinctive identity that begat a region's success in the first place — turning cities into tired replicas of each other. </p><p>And none of this guarantees financial success, either. City governments, eager to win the all-against-all fight for capital investment, are happy to offer tax-break enticements to developers. So while construction cranes may signal economic success and there may be an influx of cash from building permitting and new residents' spending, cities will eventually find that there's no money to repair the roads and pipes that lead to all this new development. All the emergency calls and trash these new apartment buildings generate need to be dealt with too, and that costs money. </p><p>It is worth saying that there is nothing wrong with enjoying your weekend farmers-market jaunt (I know I do). Making a city that's exciting, fun, and inviting is an unalloyed good thing. But the default way cities do it now is creating unaffordable and uninspired cityscapes. </p><p>To avoid these challenges, some cutting-edge cities have gotten creative. Newark, New Jersey set up a revolving loan fund to convert privately held small businesses into Employee Stock Ownership Plans, which <a href="https://www.americanprogress.org/article/building-workers-wealth-cities-states/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">have been recognized</a> as a great way to keep money in a community after a business owner retires. Other cities could reverse a trend that began in the 60s where satelite communities and suburbs formed their own (usually whiter and wealthier) municipal governments, splitting city resources. Reconsolidating cities would reduce overhead costs of running them and increase the quality of the essentials: water, public safety, and waste disposal. </p><p>Housing is also a crucial piece of the puzzle. While some cities definitely need to increase supply, <a href="https://furmancenter.org/thestoop/entry/supply-skepticism-housing-supply-and-affordability" target="_blank" rel="noopener">research suggests</a> that this "will never supply adequate housing for low- and moderate-income households." Rent control and public housing are important tools here, but another option that may be less politically contentious is the formation of a <a href="https://www.bostonreview.net/articles/a-path-to-neighborhood-power/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">neighborhood trust</a>. Unlike renting, neighborhood trusts like the Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative in Boston allows residents to manage permanently affordable housing on their own terms while also building up a bit of equity. </p><p>Regardless of their approach, cities that have borne the brunt of the large-city exodus will need to manage their sought-after growth sustainably. If they don't, the hype of America's new Generic Towns is certain to fade. </p><hr /><p><em><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/author/david-a-banks">David A. Banks</a> is a lecturer and Director of Globalization Studies at University at Albany SUNY. He is also the author of "The City Authentic: How the Attention Economy Builds Urban America," and the officer for contingent faculty for his union, UUP. </em></p>

Every American city wanted to be cool. Now they're all just boring copies of each other.

New Delhi, July 10 (IANSlife) The fifth month of the Hindu calendar is called 'the holy month of Shravan', known to be a conduit for conveying natural and tremendous healing energies by invoking 'Lord Shiva'.<br /><br />This divine and pious month is known to be a sacred month devotionally dedicated to 'Lord Shiva' and depicted as the wielder of power and sovereignty and his consort the 'Goddess Parvati' is 'Shakti' embodying the active dynamic energy of Shiva. Together they bring "creative destruction" -- for the sole purpose of regeneration, transmutation and spiritual transformation. <br /><br />As per the mythology, the auspicious act of 'Samudra Manthan' - war between Gods and demons took place in this holy month which emphasized upon the importance of Lord Shiva consuming the poison from the churning of the ocean to save the entire mankind from evil destruction; and stored it in his throat. Taking this story as an epitome of relaxing mankind from the high malefic effect, during this month appeasing the 'Shivling' symbol of 'Lord Shiva' which radiates immense energy, one can salvage and rescue themselves from the deadly curses and complexities of life. Worshipping Lord Shiva not only brings in a concrete support within one to tackle their battles but also helps to liberate them from the miseries in life.<br /><br />This month is an ideal time to grow tranquility, good health and get Divine blessings by performing austerities. According to the Hindu ancient culture, the Shravan constellation is visible in the sky; hence the name is appropriate for the month. This month is consecrated with the phenomenal energies of 'Lord Shiva' as the cosmic energies are spontaneously supercharged with Shiv tattva (Shiva elements) which can help master the art of consciousness by purifying one's mind, body, spirit and the environment we live in.<br /><br />It is essential to rejuvenate our home during 'Shravan' - <br /><br />Shravan symbolizes "purity, consciousness and knowledge". Practicing rejuvenating rituals during shravan in our life is the gateway to immense purity, abundance and provides relief from reverberating negative energies within ourselves and in our environment. Hence, one must definitely keep the house neat and clean to remove negative energies accumulated in the form of dust. It is believed that "Goddess Lakshmi" prefers to reside in a house that has kept clean, not just physically but energetically also.<br /><br />During the time of pandemic, wholesalers and florists had to close their doors and people avoided to buy flowers and other pooja samagri; however, worship does not mean just rituals or is limited to rituals, people can do these 9 holistic rituals to rejuvenate their home. Materials which are mentioned are available online. Many online store retailers that had to quickly build a fast delivery connect amid the crisis.<br /><br />"Smudging with Sage" - It has been one of the oldest rituals for energetic cleansing of a space or someone's aura. You can choose a Monday every week to smudge the entire house with Sage or any other herb or holy wood like Palo Santo. <br /><br />"Wind Chimes or Tibetian Singing Bowl" - Sound vibrations are a powerful way to clear the energy of a room and raise its energetic vibration. Healing sounds can break apart dense or heavy energy that is lowering the energy in your home. With the lovely winds in Shravan month, make use of wind chimes to bring in beautiful sounds in your home. You can also use a singing bowl to create a healing effect with gentle vibrations that can be felt on both a physical and spiritual level. <br /><br />"RAKUNA Zibu symbol" - To help eliminate any kind of negativity from the space. Just draw it by hand on a post-it note &amp; stick in every room. <br /><br />"Healing Crystals" - Gridding your home using black tourmaline crystals is also a great option to protect yourself from any external negative energies. Since unmarried girls fast for having a good husband during this period, healing loving energies of Rose Quartz can also be harnessed. This crystal also helps in finding a good partner. <br /><br />"Using Diffusers" - Using a diffuser with sandalwood essential oil and camphor is also a beautiful experience given that sandalwood is so closely associated with the Shravan Shiv pooja rituals.<br /><br />Ash Gourd - On New Moon days, it is a widespread practice to worship an Ash Gourd and then hang it at the entrance of the home. New Moon energy is helpful to start something fresh &amp; make intentions for the future. And Ash Gourd has immense Praan Shakti and it absorbs any negative energy from entering your home. <br /><br />"Incenses" - Pooja rituals are common during Shravan month. Burning a natural incense is helpful in clearing out the negative energies. Make sure the incense you are burning is natural &amp; not chemically treated. Also incense sticks made of bamboo sticks are not good to burn. Burning bamboo releases bad gases. Best is to burn natural cow dung dhoop or battis for purification &amp; an aromatic experience. <br /><br />"Sea Salt" - Place sea salt in all corners of the room in a container or on the floor. Let it absorb the negativity for 1-2 days &amp; then trash that salt away. Salt is a natural cleanser.<br /><br />"Manifest a Wish" - If you are looking to manifest your wishes during this auspicious month, then you can harness the energy of the bay leaf. You can write your intention on a whole bay leaf, hold it in your hands &amp; visualize it happening in front of you. Feel it with all your senses and then burn the bay leaf using a candle or diya, there by submitting your wish/intention to the Universe to manifest.<br /><br />(Kuhoo Gupta, Healer and Founder of The K Junction)<br /><br />(IANSlife can be contacted at ianslife@ians.in)<br /><br />--IANS<br /><br />Kuhoo gupta/tb/

9 Tips to Rejuvenate your home during Shravan

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/58333916ba6eb61b008b58b1-923/screen shot 2016-04-01 at 3.18.40 pm.png" alt="china" data-mce-source="Reuters" /><p class="source"><span>Reuters</span></p></div><p></p></div></div>Elon Musk, the founder of SpaceX and a Mars colonization evangelist, may face a big snag in his dream to <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/spacex-internet-satellite-constellation-2016-11">bathe the globe</a> in high-speed internet: the Chinese military.</p><p>On November 15, SpaceX asked the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for permission to launch 4,425 internet-providing satellites. That is hundreds more satellites than currently orbit Earth, including the dead ones.</p><p>But as far back as January 2015, when Musk first <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHeZHyOnsm4">debuted his global internet project</a> at a new SpaceX satellite factory in Seattle, he noted how China could pose a significant hurdle for his plans.</p><p>The Chinese government would have to agree to let SpaceX build antenna dishes, or ground links, to send and receive data to and from the company's spacecraft. But that nation routes internet access for its <a href="http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.POP.TOTL?locations=CN">1.37 billion</a> inhabitants through "<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/china-is-winning-its-war-against-internet-freedom-2016-5">the Great Firewall</a>," a <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/china-heightens-internet-restrictions-2016-3">censorship technology</a> that blocks foreign news, mentions of citizen uprisings (like the Tiananmen Square Massacre), or anything else Chinese officials don't like on the web.</p><p>"Obviously, any given country can say it's illegal to have a ground link. [...] And from our standpoint we could conceivably continue to broadcast," Musk said during the event. "I mean, I'm hopeful that we can structure agreements with various countries to allow communication with their citizens, but it is on a country-by-country basis."</p><p>But what if SpaceX continued to broadcast uncensored internet over China, despite not being given permission?</p><p>"If they get upset with us, they can blow our satellites up, which wouldn't be good," Musk said. "China can do that. So probably we shouldn't broadcast there."</p><h2>Satellite killers</h2><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/58334847e02ba7d73c8b4c22-2400/china-pla-mobile-missile-launcher-military-parade-gettyimages-486281068.jpg" alt="china pla mobile missile launcher military parade GettyImages 486281068" data-mce-source="Getty Images" /><p class="source"><span>Getty Images</span></p><p class="caption">A missile launcher similar to the one used by China to destroy an old satellite in 2007.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>Musk has good reason to fear the People's Liberation Army (PLA) of China.</p><p>In January 2007, the PLA launched a "<a href="http://www.popularmechanics.com/space/satellites/a1782/4218443/">kinetic kill vehicle</a>" - the space equivalent of a giant bullet - atop a mobile, multi-stage rocket.</p><p>The target was an old Chinese weather satellite called Feng Yun-1C (FY-1C), and the head-on collision between the two objects happened at roughly 18,000 mph (8 km per second).</p><p>It was an impressive, if frightening, demonstration that echoed the US military's <a href="http://www.ucsusa.org/sites/default/files/legacy/assets/documents/nwgs/a-history-of-ASAT-programs_lo-res.pdf">anti-satellite test of October 1985</a>. That US satellite-killing exercise blasted an old solar observatory called Solwind into more than 280 pieces.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right click-to-enlarge"><div><div class="image on-image"><a title_source="Celestrak/Analytical Graphics, Inc." title_caption="Red dots are known pieces of China's destroyed FY-1C satellite. Green dots are low-Earth orbit satellites." class="zoomin" href="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5833527de02ba71e008b59c8-960/china-fengyun-fy-1c-satellite-killer-space-debris-celestrak.jpg"><span class="sprites click-to-enlarge-icon" title="Click to enlarge"></span><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5833527de02ba71e008b59c8-1222/china-fengyun-fy-1c-satellite-killer-space-debris-celestrak.jpg" alt="china fengyun fy 1c satellite killer space debris celestrak" data-mce-source="Celestrak/Analytical Graphics, Inc." data-mce-caption="Red dots are known pieces of China's destroyed FY-1C satellite. Green dots are low-Earth orbit satellites." /></a><p class="source"><span>Celestrak/Analytical Graphics, Inc.</span></p><p class="caption">Red dots are known pieces of China's destroyed FY-1C satellite. Green dots are low-Earth orbit satellites.</p></div><p></p></div></div>In the case of China's 2007 anti-satellite test, however, the impact created nearly 4,000 new detectable chunks of space debris.</p><p>Hundreds of pieces of FY-1C have slowed down enough to burn up in Earth's atmosphere, but some 3,438 roughly softball-size pieces are still zooming around the planet at speeds of thousands of miles per hour. What's more, <a href="http://spacenews.com/u-s-official-china-turned-to-debris-free-asat-tests-following-2007-outcry/">according to Space News</a>, roughly half of those chunks will stay in orbit until 2027.</p><p>There may also be as many as 35,000 fingernail-size bits of FY-1C debris circling the Earth which - like so many tiny bullets - even the most advanced ground radar stations can't track, <a href="http://www.popularmechanics.com/space/satellites/a1782/4218443/">according to Popular Mechanics</a>.</p><p>In fact, despite the vast distances that separate satellites hundreds of miles above Earth, pieces of FY-1C have already <a href="http://www.space.com/20138-russian-satellite-chinese-space-junk.html">destroyed a Russian satellite</a> and <a href="http://www.space.com/14398-space-station-dodges-chinese-space-junk.html">nearly whacked the International Space Station</a>.</p><p>FY-1C's trash is just one source of space junk, though. Decades of launching artificial satellites into orbit has created an orbiting field of trash that NASA scientists fear is <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/space-junk-at-critical-density-2015-9">reaching a "critical density"</a>: when more junk is being created than is falling out of the sky.</p><p>Efforts are underway to figure out ways to clean up this deadly trash around Earth, including <a href="http://spacenews.com/u-s-official-china-turned-to-debris-free-asat-tests-following-2007-outcry/">one effort by the Chinese</a>, but it's an intractably <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/kids-want-to-clean-up-space-junk-orbiting-earth-with-the-hubble-2016-6">difficult task</a> and progress has been slow.</p><p>So even if China doesn't exercise its satellite-killing capabilities, which it has continued to develop, SpaceX will have to confront the persistent threat of <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/mind-blowing-video-of-space-junk-evolution-since-1957-2015-12">space junk</a> smacking into its giant constellation of internet satellites - and creating even more of a threat if that happens.</p><h2>How SpaceX's global internet might work</h2><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/56cf969add0895a5198b45d0-2048/17108097439_3fe20e9a83_k.jpg" alt="falcon 9 spacex" data-mce-source="SpaceX/Flickr" data-link="https://www.flickr.com/photos/spacexphotos/page2" /><p class="source"><span><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/spacexphotos/page2">SpaceX/Flickr</a></span></p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>According to a database compiled by the Union of Concerned Scientists, <a href="http://www.ucsusa.org/nuclear-weapons/space-weapons/satellite-database">1,419 active satellites are currently orbiting Earth</a>. Roughly 2,600 satellites that no longer work are thought to be floating in space, but even factoring those in, SpaceX's planned fleet would be larger than everything already in space.</p><p>Some of the <a href="http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Launchers/Ariane_5_Largest-ever_telecommunications_satellite_launched">biggest</a> telecommunications satellites can weigh several tons, be the size of a bus, and orbit from a fixed point about 22,000 miles, or 35,000 kilometers, above Earth.</p><p>According to SpaceX's FCC application, though, it seems these won't be typical telecommunications satellites.</p><p>Each satellite in SpaceX's planned constellation will weigh about 850 pounds, or 386 kilograms, and be roughly the size of a MINI Cooper car. They will orbit at altitudes ranging from 715 miles (1,150 km) to 790 miles (1,275 km).</p><p>From this lofty vantage point, SpaceX says, each satellite could cover an ellipse about 1,300 miles (2,120 km) wide. That's about the distance from Maine to the Florida panhandle.</p><p>"The system is designed to provide a wide range of broadband and communications services for residential, commercial, institutional, governmental and professional users worldwide," SpaceX wrote in its application.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right click-to-enlarge"><div><div class="image on-image"><a title_source="SpaceX/FCC" title_caption="" class="zoomin" href="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/582ce93ce02ba734008b4c64-960/spacex-internet-satellite-details.png"><span class="sprites click-to-enlarge-icon" title="Click to enlarge"></span><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/582ce93ce02ba734008b4c64-1085/spacex-internet-satellite-details.png" alt="spacex internet satellite details" data-mce-source="SpaceX/FCC" data-link="http://licensing.fcc.gov/myibfs/download.do?attachment_key=1158350" /></a><p class="source"><span><a href="http://licensing.fcc.gov/myibfs/download.do?attachment_key=1158350">SpaceX/FCC</a></span></p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>SpaceX's filing with the FCC outlines a two-phase launch plan.</p><p>To get the party started, SpaceX wants to send up 1,600 satellites at one orbital altitude, then follow up with another 2,825 satellites placed in four shells at different altitudes.</p><p>"With deployment of the first 800 satellites, SpaceX will be able to provide widespread U.S. and international coverage for broadband services," SpaceX wrote. "Once fully optimized through the Final Deployment, the system will be able to provide high bandwidth (up to 1 Gbps per user), low latency broadband services for consumers and businesses in the U.S. and globally."</p><p>During his January 2015 talk, <a href="http://shitelonsays.com/transcript/spacex-seattle-2015-2015-01-15">Musk said</a> the full system "would be $10 or $15 billion to create, maybe more. Then, the user terminals will be at least $100 to $300 depending on which type of terminal."</p><p>And it's all a means to an end.</p><p>"This is intended to be a significant amount of revenue and help fund <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-mars-speech-transcript-2016-9">a city on Mars</a>," he said.</p><h2>Turbo speeds</h2><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/58262790691e8828018b651c-2400/gettyimages-158774123.jpg" alt="two men computers typing technology digital online internet" data-mce-source="Patrick Lux/Getty Images" data-link="http://www.gettyimages.com/license/158774123" /><p class="source"><span><a href="http://www.gettyimages.com/license/158774123">Patrick Lux/Getty Images</a></span></p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>A speed of 1 gigabit per second (Gbps) globally would be huge.</p><p>The global average for internet speed per user in late 2015, according <a href="https://www.akamai.com/us/en/multimedia/documents/content/state-of-the-internet/q4-2015-state-of-the-internet-connectivity-report-us.pdf">Akamai's "State of the Internet" report</a>, was 5.1 Mbps second - about 200 times slower than SpaceX's target - with most of the higher speeds tied up in cable and fiber-optic connections.</p><p>SpaceX also makes the point in its <a href="http://broadbandcommission.org/Documents/publications/HLPF-July2016.pdf">filing's legal statement</a> that, according to <a href="http://broadbandcommission.org/Documents/publications/HLPF-July2016.pdf">a July report</a> by UNESCO's Broadband Commission for Sustainable Development, "4.2 billion people (or 57% of the world's population) are offline for a wide range of reasons, but often also because the necessary connectivity is not present or not affordable."</p><p>Bathing the planet in internet is one way to get those people online.</p><p>Here are some more details directly from SpaceX's filing, which are notable:</p><ul><li><strong>High capacity:</strong> Each satellite in the SpaceX System provides aggregate downlink capacity to users ranging from 17 to 23 Gbps, depending on the gain of the user terminal involved. Assuming an average of 20 Gbps, the 1600 satellites in the Initial Deployment would have a total aggregate capacity of 32 Tbps. SpaceX will periodically improve the satellites over the course of the multi-year deployment of the system, which may further increase capacity.</li><li><strong>High adaptability:</strong> The system leverages phased array technology to dynamically steer a large pool of beams to focus capacity where it is needed. Optical inter-satellite links permit flexible routing of traffic on-orbit. Further, the constellation ensures that frequencies can be reused effectively across different satellites to enhance the flexibility and capacity and robustness of the overall system.</li><li><strong>Broadband services:</strong> The system will be able to provide broadband service at speeds of up to 1 Gbps per end user. The system's use of low-Earth orbits will allow it to target latencies of approximately 25-35 ms.</li><li><strong>Worldwide coverage:</strong> With deployment of the first 800 satellites, the system will be able to provide U.S. and international broadband connectivity; when fully deployed, the system will add capacity and availability at the equator and poles for truly global coverage.</li><li><strong>Low cost:</strong> SpaceX is designing the overall system from the ground up with cost- effectiveness and reliability in mind, from the design and manufacturing of the space and ground-based elements, to the launch and deployment of the system using SpaceX launch services, development of the user terminals, and end-user subscription rates.</li><li><strong>Ease of use:</strong> SpaceX's phased-array user antenna design will allow for a low-profile user terminal that is easy to mount and operate on walls or roofs.</li><li><strong>Lifespan: </strong>The satellites will last between 5 years and 7 years and decay within a year after that.</li></ul><p>Musk first discussed the unnamed satellite constellation project back in January of last year, later <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/space-x-is-trying-to-serve-up-internet-service-from-space-2015-6">filing for an FCC application</a> to test basic technologies that would support it.</p><p>At the time, <a href="http://shitelonsays.com/transcript/spacex-seattle-2015-2015-01-15">Musk said during a SpaceX event</a> (our emphasis added):</p><p style="padding-left: 30px;">"The focus is going to be on creating a global communications system. This is quite an ambitious effort. <strong>We're really talking about something which is, in the long term, like rebuilding the Internet in space.</strong> The goal will be to have the majority of long distance Internet traffic go over this network and about 10% of local consumer and business traffic. So that's, still probably 90% of people's local access will still come from fiber but we'll do about 10% business to consumer direct and more than half of the long distance traffic."</p><p>According to a June 2015 story by Christian Davenport <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/spacex-founder-files-with-government-to-provide-internet-service-from-space/2015/06/09/db8d8d02-0eb7-11e5-a0dc-2b6f404ff5cf_story.html">at The Washington Post</a>, Google and Fidelity invested $1 billion into Musk's company, in part to support the project. So it's a good guess that if and when the network becomes functional, those companies would partly assume control of it. (Google's parent company, Alphabet, is also working on its own effort to beam internet connectivity from the skies using satellites, balloons, and drones.)</p><p>The filing comes just two months after a SpaceX rocket exploded during a routine launchpad test. It was carrying the $200 million AMOS-6 satellite, which <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/facebooks-mark-zuckerberg-deeply-disappointed-by-spacex-explosion-2016-9">Facebook intended to license</a> to beam free internet to parts of Africa.</p><p>SpaceX declined to comment or provide more details on the project, including its projected timeline and how the satellites would be launched (presumably through Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets).</p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/international-space-station-iss-avoid-space-debris-junk-2016-10">Here's how the Space Station avoids hitting the thousands of pieces of junk in space</a></h3>        <div>            <div>    <script src="http://player.ooyala.com/v3/6e12e8b3387a44daacfb73afba25a76e"></script>    <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="s2OG1zMjE6o4DYyrBPJApoZrRTuBY-4q" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>    <script>    if (typeof RunFunctions === 'undefined') { var RunFunctions = []; }     RunFunctions.push(function()    {         var ooyalapopvideo = OO.Player.create('ooyalaplayer_popvideo', 's2OG1zMjE6o4DYyrBPJApoZrRTuBY-4q',{ autoplay: 'false' });     });    </script>    <noscript><div>Please enable Javascript to watch this video</div></noscript></div>        </div>        <script>(function() { function createPlayer() { OO.ready(function() { RunFunctions.forEach(function(ooyalaFunction) { ooyalaFunction(); }); RunFunctions = [];}); } createPlayer(); }()); </script>    </div>

You Searched For "space trash constellations" and got 13 results

Can you name these new space trash constellations? 10 new signs highlight consequences of space garbage

Ashmita Gupta

20 Starlink satellites rained down on Earth yesterday; turbulent space weather doomed mission recovery

Ashmita Gupta

The trash in outer space makes way for a new kind of map

Prabhjote Gill

Elon Musk's Starlink satellites are ruining images from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, threatening future science

Morgan McFall-Johnsen

Photos suggest SpaceX, NASA, and China space junk struck land. There's a 10% chance a person will be hit this decade.

Morgan McFall-Johnsen,Paola Rosa-Aquino

A magnetic spacecraft that can attract dead satellites has entered orbit - a test in a new effort to clean up space junk

Morgan McFall-Johnsen

Europe wants to use a suicidal robot to clean up space — one satellite at a time

Prabhjote Gill

Landfills are spewing even more methane into the atmosphere than we thought

Catherine Boudreau

A dead Russian spacecraft almost collided with a NASA satellite. The crash could have sent 7,500 bits of debris rocketing around Earth.

Morgan McFall-Johnsen,Ellyn Lapointe

The life-changing power of the strike: How 500,000 workers refused to work in 2023 — and won big

Alex Press

Every American city wanted to be cool. Now they're all just boring copies of each other.

David A. Banks

9 Tips to Rejuvenate your home during Shravan

IANS

Elon Musk's plan to blanket Earth in high-speed internet may face a big threat: China

Dave Mosher