Searching for Space Trash
<p>On February 8, 2024 at 23:48:00 local time, the <a href="https://subarutelescope.org/en/news/topics/2021/04/21/2946.html" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">Subaru-Asahi Star Camera</a> at the Maunakea Observatory in Hawaii, owned by the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, recorded <a href="https://lweb.cfa.harvard.edu/~loeb/Photos/24meteor.mp4" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">a video</a> of a meteor fireball blazing across the night sky. The object that burned in the Earth’s atmosphere was identified as a reentering Chinese satellite, named <a href="https://aerospace.org/reentries/48257" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">Object K</a>. This name sounds Kafkaesque. But sticking to the dry facts, Object K’s fireball represents Nature’s way of cleaning up human-made space trash.</p>
<p>Not all human-made space trash is eliminated so quickly. For example, Elon Musk’s <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elon_Musk%27s_Tesla_Roadster" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">Tesla Roadster</a> which was launched to space as a dummy payload on the Falcon Heavy test flight in 2018, will continue on an elliptic orbit around the Sun for tens of millions of years.</p>
<p><a href="https://avi-loeb.medium.com/searching-for-space-trash-e0a552586c29"><strong>Read More</strong></a></p>