Fergie's Tech Blog

Space Junk Tech: Rubbish is a Ticking Timebomb in the Sky

Peter Griffin writes in The New Zealand Herald:

The passengers on the LAN Chile flight from Santiago to Auckland last week should know just how close they came to calamity when a number of mysterious burning objects roared past during their journey over the Pacific last week.

If the burning objects had hit the plane, causing it to crash, they'd have been very unlucky indeed.

Experts are still arguing about whether the objects were pieces of Russian space junk or a meteorite, but the incident has highlighted the often-overlooked fact that we have made a dumping ground of not only our planet, but also of the heavens above.

Scientists estimate the chance of being hit by a piece of space junk that has re-entered the Earth's atmosphere is less than one in a trillion.

posted by Fergie @ 3/31/2007 01:49:00 PM