Earth's orbit to get crowded; 2 big pieces of Space Junk likely to collide tonight

The ever-accumulating amount of Space debris has been a concern for astronomers and scientists for many decades now. However, Earth’s orbit on Thursday night is likely to get even more crowded and way more dangerous. The California-based tracking company LeoLabs has provided information about two big pieces of space junk which will make a close approach towards Earth’s orbit.

Read | NASA shares 3-D visualisation of 'bizarre structures' in Carine Nebula | WATCH

Space Junk closing in on Earth’s orbit tonight

According to LeoLabs official website and Twitter handle, the latest findings of LeoLabs suggests that the space junk is likely to make a close approach at 8:56 pm EDT on Thursday, which is 6:26 am on Friday [IST]. The encounter will take place 616 miles or 991 kilometres above the South Atlantic Ocean, just off the coast of Antarctica. The probability of a collision between the objects is what poses a real threat on Earth. According to LeoLab, there is a more than 10 per cent chance that the objects will collide. The report termed this as "a scarily high number" because the "combined mass of the objects is about 6,170 lbs" or 2,800 kilograms. 

Read | NASA announces partnerships for Moon exploration

Read | Jeff Bezos' space company successfully tests NASA's Moon landing technology

Both these objects will be zooming toward each other at a relative velocity of 32,900 mph (52,950 km/h). LeoLabs also posted Tweet stating, "a search mode scan" will confirm if a collision occurred during the close approach. The company has scheduled a search mode scan in order to ensure that they only see two objects as expected and also be able to confirm that there is no new debris accompanying them. In its tweet, LeoLabs termed this as an extremely “high-risk event.”

Read | NASA's rules for Artemis Accords include safe disposal of orbital debris and transparency

Which objects are making a close approach to Earth?

Astronomer, Jonathan McDowell recently posted a tweet stating that Thursday’s close approach is made by a Soviet navigation satellite called Parus (or Kosmos 2004) and a Chinese rocket stage. However, this is not the first time that we are witnessing an event like this. A NASA report on its official website mentioned that in the past the operational Iridium 33 collided with Russian military satellite Cosmos 2251.

It was the most severe accidental fragmentation on record to date. In its report, NASA also revealed that more than 1800 debris approximately 10 cm and larger were produced. In addition to these big debris, clouds were also created on purpose during anti-satellite tests in 2007 and 2019 conducted by China and India.

What is space debris?

According to NASA, Space debris encompasses both natural [meteoroid] and artificial [man-made] particles. Meteoroids are in orbit about the sun, while most artificial debris (satellites) are in orbit about the Earth. As a result of this categorisation, the latter is classified as orbital debris. NASA states that orbital debris is any man-made object in orbit of Earth that no longer serves a useful function. Hence, this will include nonfunctional spacecraft, abandoned launch vehicle stages, mission-related debris and fragmentation debris.

Image Source: NASA