{"id":1025,"date":"2025-11-11T19:19:19","date_gmt":"2025-11-12T00:19:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/orgs.ncsu.edu\/roundabout\/?p=1025"},"modified":"2026-07-21T15:23:39","modified_gmt":"2026-07-21T19:23:39","slug":"pollution-takes-a-cosmic-turn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/orgs.ncsu.edu\/roundabout\/out-and-abouts\/pollution-takes-a-cosmic-turn\/","title":{"rendered":"Pollution Takes a Cosmic Turn"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Article by Emma Pena, Graphic by Chloe Schmitz<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Humanity, in its quest to discover the great unknown, has managed to step foot on the moon, shoot defenseless animals into the stars in the name of science and perhaps the most human of them all, pollute space. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Space trash people, it\u2019s real\u2014real nasty. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

While our alien counterparts have yet to make first contact with the human species (allegedly), they have undoubtedly made first contact with our trash. If they could report the Earth to the intergalactic homeowners’ association for ruining their lawn, they surely would. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So congrats to humankind, we\u2019ve officially hit the quadfecta\u2014air pollution, water pollution, light pollution and now, space pollution. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What is Space Trash?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Space trash, or orbital debris, is the accumulation of bits and pieces of the many man-made objects we\u2019ve launched into space\u2014pieces of spacecraft, chips of paint, rocket parts, exploded objects still hurling around the Earth and no longer active satellites abandoned to futilely orbit. All of these lovely pieces of garbage are floating about in our very own orbital litter box, or LEO (low Earth orbit). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, floating is a bit of an understatement\u2014according to NASA<\/a>, the \u201cspace junk\u201d that surrounds our planet is actually zooming at speeds of 18,000 miles per hour (faster than a bullet!). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

While on Earth, we may think this won\u2019t affect us way down here on solid ground, our orbital trash mound actually does pose quite a threat to humankind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The rate at which this cosmic junk yard travels, plus the volume of rubble we\u2019ve dumped into space, makes for a pretty risky combination for future space endeavors, increasing the risk of potential damage to spacecrafts and collisions with active satellites\u2014that means no more TV, internet or doom scrolling at 3 am. These collisions cause even more space debris, tumbling into a domino effect of trash creating trash<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although the smaller objects in the lower orbital space of LEO can easily re-enter the atmosphere after some years, most likely reduced to ash before they even reach the ground, debris at higher altitudes of 36,000 km <\/a>will continue to orbit upwards to thousands of years. The larger pieces of debris, unlike the smaller bits that burn up in the atmosphere, have the potential to crash land back onto Earth<\/a>\u2014the fallout from, say, an old rocket fuel tank, could have disastrous effects on the environment from its high levels of toxicity. Thanks, Elon Musk. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

How Did it Start & How Can We Fix it? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It all started long, long ago, in a galaxy far, far away\u2014the launch of Sputnik I, circa 1957<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sputnik I, the world’s first artificial satellite launched by the Soviet Union, marked two canon events: the start of the Space Race and the introduction of space junk. This massive metal orb spearheaded the Space Age, paving the way for space activity in the 60s. Consequently, on June 29, 1961, one of the earliest major incidents of space junk occurred when the upper stage of the Thor-Ablestar rocket,<\/a> used to launch satellites, exploded in orbit. Since then, the amount of debris has soared to new heights. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unfortunately, there is no celestial garbage man to sweep up our cosmic mess. LEO, now seen as the \u201cworld’s largest garbage dump,\u201d<\/a> is an expensive mess to clean with nearly 6,000 tons of debris. However, steps have been put in place to track, minimize and remove the junk yard. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let\u2019s go through a very (very) brief and basic run-down of space junk history<\/a>\u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n