WEBVTT - Is space filled with junk? 0:00:08.520 --> 0:00:10.760 Hey, Daniel, do you think the planet Earth is getting 0:00:11.000 --> 0:00:14.600 too crowded? Well, you know, we live in southern California, 0:00:14.800 --> 0:00:17.320 so we do experience a good amount of traffic, even 0:00:17.360 --> 0:00:19.560 though I get to wear sandals all year long. Well 0:00:19.680 --> 0:00:22.040 does it make you want to move out of Southern California? Well, 0:00:22.079 --> 0:00:24.160 you know, I'd be hesitant to give up the sandals, 0:00:24.239 --> 0:00:26.560 but I'd love to live in outer space. Well yeah, 0:00:26.600 --> 0:00:28.720 do you think community would be easier in space? Well, 0:00:28.760 --> 0:00:30.560 it can't be much worse than it is down here 0:00:30.560 --> 0:00:32.760 in southern California. Well, I think you better move up 0:00:32.800 --> 0:00:36.559 there soon because space might be getting more crowded than 0:00:36.680 --> 0:00:39.479 you think. Are you talking about Elon Musk's Tesla that 0:00:39.520 --> 0:00:41.440 he launched out there? There's gonna be a traffic jam 0:00:41.520 --> 0:01:00.440 off Tesla's up there pretty soon. Hi. I'm Jorhea, a 0:01:00.520 --> 0:01:04.160 cartoonists and the creator of PhD Comics. I'm Daniel. I'm 0:01:04.200 --> 0:01:07.360 a particle of physicist. But I love all things space, 0:01:07.720 --> 0:01:10.160 even if they don't have aliens in them. And so 0:01:10.200 --> 0:01:13.320 welcome to our podcast, Daniel and Jorge Explain the Universe, 0:01:13.400 --> 0:01:15.840 a production of I Heart Radio in which we take 0:01:15.880 --> 0:01:19.360 a mental tour of the universe zipping from neutron stars 0:01:19.400 --> 0:01:23.199 to black holes to alien planets, and even talk about 0:01:23.280 --> 0:01:26.399 tiny things here on Earth like little particles, electrons and 0:01:26.480 --> 0:01:29.640 quantum tunneling. And the key is to share with you 0:01:29.720 --> 0:01:33.000 the wonders, the mystery, the majesty of this universe in 0:01:33.040 --> 0:01:36.000 a way that's explainable and hopefully makes you laugh and 0:01:36.040 --> 0:01:39.240 maybe cringe once or twice. That are bad jokes only 0:01:39.240 --> 0:01:42.160 but only once or twice. You cringes per episode, and 0:01:42.160 --> 0:01:45.800 then you're cut off, and then you that's right, Then 0:01:45.840 --> 0:01:49.720 you have to keep listening in silence. But yeah, it's 0:01:49.720 --> 0:01:51.640 about all the amazing things we can see from this 0:01:51.720 --> 0:01:55.600 planet Earth that we're sitting on in traffic, right, we're 0:01:55.600 --> 0:01:58.880 sort of in the traffic of the Solar System, right 0:01:58.920 --> 0:02:03.840 behind Mars Venus, next to the crowded asteroid belt. Yeah, 0:02:03.880 --> 0:02:06.720 we're in an unusually dense part of the universe. You know, 0:02:06.720 --> 0:02:10.639 if you took like an average cubic kilometer of the universe, 0:02:10.800 --> 0:02:13.639 it would be pretty empty. Most likely, you just get 0:02:13.680 --> 0:02:17.120 like a chunk of space in between galaxies. Even inside 0:02:17.120 --> 0:02:19.720 the galaxies, most of them don't have planets in them. 0:02:19.760 --> 0:02:22.760 So our neighborhood of the universe is pretty dense, we 0:02:22.800 --> 0:02:24.600 have a star, We've got a bunch of planets. There's 0:02:24.639 --> 0:02:26.519 a lot of rocks out there. Yeah, I hate it 0:02:26.560 --> 0:02:30.679 when the asteroids hunk behind me. It's so annoying. Well, look, 0:02:30.840 --> 0:02:32.440 they've been doing it for billions of years, so they 0:02:32.440 --> 0:02:35.040 hate when like nubies come in and mess up their commute. 0:02:35.160 --> 0:02:39.160 You know, that's right. It's people who don't signal as 0:02:39.160 --> 0:02:41.920 the Earth signal. Lately, which way it's turning, I don't know, 0:02:41.919 --> 0:02:44.000 but we keep launching up stuff into space out there, 0:02:44.080 --> 0:02:46.760 messing up everybody else's commute. So, yeah, we imagine there 0:02:46.800 --> 0:02:49.040 are a lot of you out there listening to this podcast, 0:02:49.120 --> 0:02:52.280 maybe sitting in your cars in traffic, and you're probably 0:02:52.360 --> 0:02:55.600 wondering where all these people came from. Are there too 0:02:55.600 --> 0:02:58.840 many people on Earth? And is it too crowded out here? Yeah? 0:02:58.919 --> 0:03:01.240 Maybe you feel like law eaching all those people out 0:03:01.240 --> 0:03:04.520 into space and you have the four oh five to yourself. Yeah, 0:03:04.639 --> 0:03:07.760 and so we were thinking, are there alternatives? Could you 0:03:07.800 --> 0:03:09.760 live out in space to get away from it all? 0:03:09.919 --> 0:03:12.400 But you might be surprised to discover that space actually 0:03:12.440 --> 0:03:14.520 has a bunch of stuff in it as well. It's 0:03:14.560 --> 0:03:18.960 not a pristine territory. It's the final frontier, but it's 0:03:19.040 --> 0:03:22.200 also filled with traffic. It's getting crowded out there, right, 0:03:22.760 --> 0:03:25.600 that's right. You probably heard about Elon Musk's plans to 0:03:25.680 --> 0:03:29.399 launch thousands and thousands of new satellites to improve your 0:03:29.520 --> 0:03:32.240 download speeds. Yeah, and not just the stuff that's going 0:03:32.280 --> 0:03:34.160 to be launched, but there are a bunch of stuffs 0:03:34.160 --> 0:03:36.720 out there already floating out there right in space. Yea. 0:03:36.880 --> 0:03:40.600 So we thought we'd dive into this topic between the 0:03:40.680 --> 0:03:43.360 Earth surface and the rest of the universe and talk 0:03:43.440 --> 0:03:46.040 about how much stuff is there out there? So to 0:03:46.120 --> 0:03:53.760 the on the program, we'll be tackling the question is 0:03:53.760 --> 0:03:57.320 space crowded? How much stuff is up there? How much 0:03:57.440 --> 0:04:01.080 room is there? And do you need to get a 0:04:01.160 --> 0:04:04.520 fast carporal late cast just to get out to get 0:04:04.520 --> 0:04:07.480 out to Marrows these days, well, traffic in space at 0:04:07.560 --> 0:04:10.400 least would be more complicated because you got another dimension 0:04:10.440 --> 0:04:12.600 to move in, right. I mean, I don't know how 0:04:12.600 --> 0:04:14.320 they will plan to organize it, but you can always 0:04:14.360 --> 0:04:16.320 go over with the car in front of you. That's 0:04:16.320 --> 0:04:20.000 like a double nightmare for me. It's like multidimensional traffic. 0:04:20.880 --> 0:04:22.680 It sounds like there's a zillion more ways to get 0:04:22.680 --> 0:04:25.400 into an accident. I feel like, at least here on Earth, 0:04:25.400 --> 0:04:27.320 if I'm stuck in traffic, I still I can still 0:04:27.360 --> 0:04:31.200 fantasize about flying upwards or digging down and getting away 0:04:31.200 --> 0:04:32.560 from it all. But if you're in space and it's 0:04:32.640 --> 0:04:37.039 space jam, in a traffic jam, uh, you've got nowhere 0:04:37.040 --> 0:04:39.200 to go. I think you owe Michael Jordans ten cents 0:04:39.200 --> 0:04:43.160 for mentioning that was bucks, buddy. Yeah. But you may 0:04:43.160 --> 0:04:45.320 have heard the news that Elon Musk is planning to 0:04:45.400 --> 0:04:48.839 launch a bunch of satellites. They recently deployed a hundred 0:04:48.880 --> 0:04:52.960 and twenty two satellites into low Earth orbit to test 0:04:53.080 --> 0:04:57.320 their Internet from space idea, and his plans are to 0:04:57.400 --> 0:04:59.720 launch a bunch more, not a hundred more, not to 0:05:00.040 --> 0:05:03.359 hundred more, not a thousand more, but something like ten 0:05:03.560 --> 0:05:06.880 thousand in the near future, stretching up to maybe forty 0:05:07.000 --> 0:05:09.839 thousand in the far freiture. And it's all part of 0:05:09.880 --> 0:05:13.400 his plan to create the space fornet. Is that what 0:05:13.440 --> 0:05:16.039 he's calling it? That isn't what he should have. That 0:05:16.160 --> 0:05:19.159 is the best possible there. You know, we got space force, 0:05:19.920 --> 0:05:24.240 why not space Internet? Yeah, and you're probably thinking, hey, look, 0:05:24.279 --> 0:05:26.440 space is big right, I mean, the universe is vast. 0:05:26.520 --> 0:05:29.280 Daniel was just saying how space is mostly empty, how 0:05:29.320 --> 0:05:31.960 could space ever get crowded? And you're right, there is 0:05:32.000 --> 0:05:33.880 a lot of space up there. You know, a quick 0:05:33.880 --> 0:05:37.360 calculation up to high Earth orbit and there's like two 0:05:37.480 --> 0:05:42.719 hundred trillion cubic kilometers of space just surrounding our planet. 0:05:43.200 --> 0:05:47.760 And currently humans have launched about two thousand operational satellites, 0:05:47.920 --> 0:05:50.120 So that doesn't seem like much. I mean, do the math. 0:05:50.200 --> 0:05:54.720 You get about ninety billion cubic kilometers per operational satellite. 0:05:54.880 --> 0:05:57.120 That seems like a lot, right, And it seems that's 0:05:57.160 --> 0:06:01.640 like the ratio between space and currently how many satellites 0:06:01.680 --> 0:06:04.440 there are out there. Yeah, we've got two thousand satellites 0:06:04.480 --> 0:06:06.920 that are running that are doing something that are helping us, 0:06:06.920 --> 0:06:09.200 that are like, you know, telling you where your phone are, 0:06:09.480 --> 0:06:12.640 or spying on North Korea or whatever. It takes all 0:06:12.680 --> 0:06:14.960 the amount of space out there in sort of high 0:06:15.000 --> 0:06:20.720 Earth orbit, and you get ninety billion cubic kilometers per satellite, 0:06:20.760 --> 0:06:22.839 So it seems like plenty of room. It seems like 0:06:22.839 --> 0:06:24.640 plenty of room. But I think the problem is that 0:06:24.680 --> 0:06:27.080 if you run into one of these things in space, 0:06:27.240 --> 0:06:31.599 it's pretty bad news. Yeah, this is very high speed traffic. 0:06:31.720 --> 0:06:34.000 So we thought it'd be fun to talk about whether 0:06:34.000 --> 0:06:36.320 there really is room out there? How dangerous is it 0:06:36.360 --> 0:06:39.120 to launch a satellite? And how long do you have 0:06:39.200 --> 0:06:41.520 to wait after you put on your left turn signal 0:06:41.680 --> 0:06:44.080 before you know it's clear to pull your tesla into 0:06:44.120 --> 0:06:47.320 low Earth orbit? Yeah, because you definitely don't want to 0:06:47.320 --> 0:06:51.080 have a bumper to bumper collision here with a satellite 0:06:51.080 --> 0:06:54.000 going in hundreds or thousands of kilometers per hour. No, 0:06:54.200 --> 0:06:57.560 you certainly don't. I'm pretty sure your insurance doesn't cover it. 0:06:57.600 --> 0:06:59.360 Definitely not the one you got on your rental car. 0:06:59.520 --> 0:07:03.560 So they're about two thousand satellites right now operating out 0:07:03.560 --> 0:07:06.000 in space. But it's not just satellites out there, right, 0:07:06.080 --> 0:07:09.960 there's also space junk. Yeah, So I was wondering if 0:07:10.000 --> 0:07:12.600 people were aware of this problem. Do people know that 0:07:12.680 --> 0:07:15.480 space has more than just operational satellites on it? Do 0:07:15.520 --> 0:07:18.840 people think space is totally empty and there's lots of 0:07:18.920 --> 0:07:21.080 room out there for frontiers people to go out and 0:07:21.120 --> 0:07:23.680 claim their chunk, or do people think that space is 0:07:23.720 --> 0:07:28.120 mostly crowded and already filled with Elon Musk's garbage? What 0:07:28.680 --> 0:07:33.360 are you gonna say, Elon, munk's junk, I should have 0:07:33.400 --> 0:07:37.520 said that that was much better. Maybe he's planning a 0:07:37.600 --> 0:07:41.520 business where he takes your junk and dumps it in space. Oh, 0:07:41.560 --> 0:07:46.080 there you go, one nine hundred got space jusk junk? 0:07:48.160 --> 0:07:51.840 Must what what must I do with my junk? And 0:07:51.960 --> 0:07:54.320 if he didn't plan that, he's probably a listener to 0:07:54.360 --> 0:07:57.760 this podcast because it's awesome and now he's planning it. 0:07:57.880 --> 0:08:00.240 So Elon, we had one percent sticks. So as you show, 0:08:00.360 --> 0:08:03.000 Daniel went out there into the streets and as random strangers. 0:08:03.120 --> 0:08:06.560 If they thought that space was getting too crowded, here's 0:08:06.560 --> 0:08:08.800 what people had to say before you hear their answers. 0:08:08.840 --> 0:08:12.840 Think to yourself, do you think space is overcrowded or 0:08:13.040 --> 0:08:15.560 is there a lot of room for more stuff? I 0:08:15.600 --> 0:08:19.200 would say probably filled with satellites and crowded. Yeah, I 0:08:19.280 --> 0:08:21.200 think it's like dangerous to be up there. I don't 0:08:21.200 --> 0:08:23.800 know if it's totally crowded, but it's probably getting there, 0:08:24.440 --> 0:08:27.760 I would imagine. I would say it was empty, mostly empty, 0:08:27.960 --> 0:08:30.520 so like room for lots more stuff. Yeah, I think 0:08:30.520 --> 0:08:33.800 it's definitely still mostly empty. See you, there's lots of 0:08:33.840 --> 0:08:37.200 room for more satellites. Well, I don't think we should 0:08:37.240 --> 0:08:40.280 put a lot more satellites, but I bet there's more 0:08:40.360 --> 0:08:42.640 room of food needed to Oh. I think there's already 0:08:42.640 --> 0:08:44.640 a lot of satellites, and I think more will have 0:08:44.679 --> 0:08:48.000 a big impact on the light quality that astronomers can 0:08:48.040 --> 0:08:52.720 collect data from. Mostly empty mostly empty wise that because 0:08:52.760 --> 0:08:56.720 of the size of space and how you can put 0:08:56.720 --> 0:09:01.920 the satellites in different layers, in different orbits. Do you agree, yes, there, 0:09:04.320 --> 0:09:06.400 I think it's filled with satellites. It feels like that's 0:09:06.559 --> 0:09:09.520 sort of relative, but it's probably as room for more. 0:09:10.000 --> 0:09:12.880 I guess that there's a lot of space junk out there, 0:09:13.080 --> 0:09:16.400 but there's so much. I know there's a lot of 0:09:16.440 --> 0:09:20.000 space up there, so I don't think it's too crowded. 0:09:20.000 --> 0:09:21.520 I know there are collisions, but I don't think they 0:09:21.559 --> 0:09:24.760 happened that often. Um, but I'd say in the near 0:09:24.800 --> 0:09:27.160 future that probably could be a problem. So why do 0:09:27.160 --> 0:09:30.400 you think it's mostly filled up? Just because the amount 0:09:30.480 --> 0:09:34.240 of communication that we have and data exchange, there's gotta 0:09:34.280 --> 0:09:38.000 be satellites, old satellites to suppose satellites. So is there 0:09:38.040 --> 0:09:40.240 like a danger of satellites bumping into each other and stuff? 0:09:40.280 --> 0:09:42.280 I'm sure, but I don't know what they'll do anything, 0:09:42.280 --> 0:09:44.760 But I don't know if they're made of you know, 0:09:45.240 --> 0:09:48.880 but I've heard rumors of space trash too, you know. 0:09:49.240 --> 0:09:52.080 All right, people don't seem too concerned about the crowdedness 0:09:52.080 --> 0:09:54.120 of space. No, but I'm not sure how many of 0:09:54.120 --> 0:09:57.160 these folks actually had like plans to launch anything. So 0:09:57.280 --> 0:10:00.320 it's a bit of an abstract question for them, you know, Oh, 0:10:00.400 --> 0:10:02.920 I see, I see. Do you think that maybe they're 0:10:02.920 --> 0:10:06.319 trying not to be alarmist or maybe they're thinking, Man, 0:10:06.360 --> 0:10:08.319 I got too many things to worry about here, I 0:10:08.400 --> 0:10:11.040 got finals coming up, I got rent to pay. Who 0:10:11.120 --> 0:10:14.600 cares about space junk? M you didn't get a lot 0:10:14.600 --> 0:10:17.160 of concern here. No, but maybe if I told them 0:10:17.160 --> 0:10:19.640 all about space junk and made them worry about the 0:10:19.640 --> 0:10:21.760 future of those satellites, they'd be worried about the next 0:10:21.760 --> 0:10:24.680 time they got on an airplane, whether the satellite that's 0:10:24.880 --> 0:10:29.120 navig that's helping their flight and navigate, is um potentially 0:10:29.120 --> 0:10:32.480 being exposed to high speed garbage. All right, well, let's 0:10:32.600 --> 0:10:34.760 um let's talk about it. The idea is that maybe 0:10:34.920 --> 0:10:38.120 space we're throwing too many things out there into space, 0:10:38.200 --> 0:10:41.000 like as a species, you know, It was exciting when 0:10:41.000 --> 0:10:43.679 we sent the first satellite out there, and it was 0:10:43.720 --> 0:10:46.400 exciting when we sent people out there. But now I 0:10:46.440 --> 0:10:48.800 think there's sort of a growing concern that are we 0:10:49.000 --> 0:10:56.640 basically treating our orbital space as the next big junkyard. Yeah, exactly, 0:10:56.640 --> 0:11:02.600 not a landfill, but a space fill, a space space film. Well, 0:11:02.600 --> 0:11:06.559 I guess technically landfills are space field. Everything is a 0:11:06.600 --> 0:11:09.679 space field from that perspective. Well, I was surprised. I 0:11:09.720 --> 0:11:11.520 did a bit of research, and I was surprised to 0:11:11.559 --> 0:11:15.120 discover sort of the small number and the large number 0:11:15.200 --> 0:11:17.520 of stuff that we have in orbit. Really it's both 0:11:17.559 --> 0:11:20.200 a lot and little. Yeah, it is. I mean the 0:11:20.280 --> 0:11:23.280 small number is the number of operational satellites. Like, we've 0:11:23.280 --> 0:11:26.240 been launching satellites for fifty years, and I know it's expensive. 0:11:26.280 --> 0:11:28.880 It's not just like anybody can launch them, but they're 0:11:28.920 --> 0:11:32.280 not that rare anymore. And you know, governments and spy 0:11:32.360 --> 0:11:37.320 agencies and armies all have their own satellites and companies do. 0:11:37.760 --> 0:11:39.800 So I was surprised to discover there are only about 0:11:39.800 --> 0:11:44.160 two thousand, two hud eighteen operational satellites in orbit. That's 0:11:44.160 --> 0:11:46.480 not really that many. Really, do you think that's not 0:11:46.559 --> 0:11:48.240 a lot. I think it's not a lot. I mean, 0:11:48.280 --> 0:11:51.320 these days it's not that expensive to launch a satellite. 0:11:51.360 --> 0:11:54.520 You know, elementary schools can fund us a micro's cube 0:11:54.520 --> 0:11:57.160 sat that ends up in orbit and takes pictures of stuff. 0:11:57.559 --> 0:12:00.640 So the prices are really coming down. So two thousand, 0:12:00.760 --> 0:12:03.240 two D eighteen not just like the big ones you 0:12:03.280 --> 0:12:05.320 see with the giant solar panels. But it could be 0:12:05.360 --> 0:12:07.600 just like little tiny satellites. Yeah, some of those are 0:12:07.600 --> 0:12:09.679 pretty small. Some of those are pretty small. But we 0:12:09.760 --> 0:12:11.880 only got two thousand, two hundreds. You know, like how 0:12:11.880 --> 0:12:14.760 many cars are on a freeway at any moment. It's 0:12:15.000 --> 0:12:18.160 much bigger number than that, and so, and space is 0:12:18.160 --> 0:12:20.160 really big, and so at first you think, wow, there's 0:12:20.200 --> 0:12:22.800 not that many satellites and space is huge, so there's 0:12:22.840 --> 0:12:25.439 plenty of room for more traffic. Nothing to worry, nothing 0:12:25.480 --> 0:12:28.920 to worry. But but but the problem is that it's 0:12:29.000 --> 0:12:32.400 not just operational satellites that are out there, right, it's 0:12:32.600 --> 0:12:37.680 first of all, unoperational satellites, and then bits of satellites, 0:12:37.880 --> 0:12:41.120 junk of satellites, a little bits of rockets that blew up, 0:12:41.360 --> 0:12:45.440 you know, stuff that astronauts dropped while they were on spacewalks. 0:12:45.679 --> 0:12:48.000 It turns out there's a lot of junk up there 0:12:48.240 --> 0:12:50.800 really and it's all man made? Or is it also 0:12:50.920 --> 0:12:53.720 like you know asteroids to somehow got caught in our 0:12:53.800 --> 0:12:56.439 orbit or things like that. This is just man made 0:12:56.440 --> 0:12:59.079 space junk. I mean there are meteors right that hit 0:12:59.120 --> 0:13:00.959 the Earth and burnham the atmosphere and you see that 0:13:01.000 --> 0:13:03.240 kind of stuff on a nice night when you're seeing 0:13:03.840 --> 0:13:07.120 meteor showers, etcetera. But this is just man made stuff 0:13:07.120 --> 0:13:09.920 that's in or wow, how many do how much? How 0:13:10.000 --> 0:13:11.360 much of this stuff do you think is out there? 0:13:11.880 --> 0:13:14.400 So they did a calculation and you can't count this 0:13:14.400 --> 0:13:16.920 stuff because a lot of it is too small. But 0:13:17.240 --> 0:13:20.160 you know, we have two thousand operational satellites right, but 0:13:20.200 --> 0:13:23.760 in terms of space junk, there's at least twenty thousand 0:13:24.000 --> 0:13:27.840 trackable objects that's just like chunks of stuff that you 0:13:27.880 --> 0:13:30.240 can see that you can see that like you know 0:13:30.440 --> 0:13:33.520 Norad and the Department of Defense and how those folks 0:13:33.559 --> 0:13:38.000 are keeping track of Wow, don't they wonder what they are? Like? 0:13:38.559 --> 0:13:40.880 Could there be spy cameras from aliens? Is what I'm 0:13:40.920 --> 0:13:45.079 where I'm going with this, Daniel Man, I would love 0:13:45.080 --> 0:13:46.319 if there was a spike camera. But if I was 0:13:46.360 --> 0:13:48.280 an alien and I wanted to build a spy camera, 0:13:48.480 --> 0:13:49.880 I would just put it in a rock, you know, 0:13:50.240 --> 0:13:51.920 hide it and make it look like a big asteroid 0:13:52.000 --> 0:13:54.120 or something. But this is just the stuff they're tracking, 0:13:54.160 --> 0:13:56.800 you know, because they don't want their two billion dollars 0:13:56.840 --> 0:13:59.800 spy satellite or ten billion dollars space telescope or whatever 0:14:00.120 --> 0:14:02.000 to bump into a piece of junks. And they track 0:14:02.120 --> 0:14:05.320 this stuff. But that's only the stuff that they can track. 0:14:05.520 --> 0:14:07.400 They track it so that they can so it doesn't 0:14:07.600 --> 0:14:10.040 so they can maneuver around the other space drunk. Yeah, 0:14:10.120 --> 0:14:12.280 it's like air traffic control, right, you want to get 0:14:12.280 --> 0:14:13.880 this out of the lands, you have to make sure 0:14:13.920 --> 0:14:16.360 now the other planes are too close by, and so 0:14:16.400 --> 0:14:18.720 you've got to manage it. And so they keep track 0:14:18.760 --> 0:14:21.240 of all this stuff. But it's a ten to one ratio. Right. 0:14:21.440 --> 0:14:25.360 Did the two thousand operational objects include the secret space 0:14:25.800 --> 0:14:28.120 spy satellites that they don't really want us to know? 0:14:28.280 --> 0:14:31.760 Or are those in the unknown category? Um, that doesn't 0:14:31.800 --> 0:14:34.200 include the things that the government doesn't want us to know. 0:14:34.760 --> 0:14:37.480 But you know, a reasonable estimates based on launches and 0:14:37.480 --> 0:14:39.640 stuff like that, because it's pretty hard to hide a launch, 0:14:39.800 --> 0:14:42.280 so they can track twenty thou objects. And are these 0:14:42.320 --> 0:14:45.040 small or these like you know, a bolt from that 0:14:45.240 --> 0:14:47.880 slipped out of the space station, or are they pretty big? 0:14:48.000 --> 0:14:50.280 These things are pretty big. You know, they're more than 0:14:50.360 --> 0:14:54.800 ten centimeters across. You know, the largest um fifteen hundred 0:14:54.840 --> 0:14:58.240 of these things wigh a total of nineteen hundred tons, 0:14:59.200 --> 0:15:02.040 and the largest ten thousand of them weigh like five 0:15:02.120 --> 0:15:06.400 thousand five tons, So it's a pretty big amount of stuff. 0:15:06.440 --> 0:15:09.400 And again, this is just the stuff that we can track. 0:15:09.800 --> 0:15:12.400 The stuff falls apart and get smaller, and then the 0:15:12.520 --> 0:15:15.640 numbers get crazy, and this is all just human junk 0:15:15.680 --> 0:15:18.800 in space. Like we've been. We've been that careless in 0:15:18.840 --> 0:15:23.280 space that we have twenty thousand bits of junk out there. 0:15:23.360 --> 0:15:25.360 You showed like a national park and this is like 0:15:25.720 --> 0:15:30.120 littered with people's picnic garbage. I guess if you're out 0:15:30.120 --> 0:15:33.560 in space, what do you do with your junk? Well, 0:15:33.600 --> 0:15:35.320 actually what you do is you drop it on Earth. 0:15:35.360 --> 0:15:37.560 The best thing to do with space junk is to 0:15:37.680 --> 0:15:40.360 push it down into the atmosphere because the atmosphere will 0:15:40.400 --> 0:15:43.320 burn it up. Anything from space is moving pretty quickly, 0:15:43.320 --> 0:15:45.760 and if it hit the atmosphere, you'll just get fried. 0:15:46.080 --> 0:15:48.120 So the best thing to do is to drop it 0:15:48.200 --> 0:15:49.640 on the Earth. The worst thing to do is to 0:15:49.760 --> 0:15:52.680 leave it in orbit around the Earth. I see. The 0:15:52.720 --> 0:15:54.400 best thing to do is to burn it in the 0:15:54.440 --> 0:15:59.960 atmosphere so it rains down in innocent people. Nobody, almost 0:16:00.040 --> 0:16:02.520 nobody has ever been heard by falling space jump. The 0:16:02.560 --> 0:16:05.760 atmosphere is a really good force field against space junk. 0:16:05.760 --> 0:16:07.600 It's so good that what we should do with our 0:16:07.600 --> 0:16:10.720 space junk is throw it against the atmosphere to you know, 0:16:10.800 --> 0:16:12.880 atomize it. Oh, I see. So this is stuff that 0:16:12.920 --> 0:16:15.520 has maybe falling off the space station or slipped out 0:16:15.520 --> 0:16:18.760 of an astronaut's hand, but that stayed in orbit. Yeah, 0:16:18.840 --> 0:16:21.800 and also the products of other collisions. And if you 0:16:21.800 --> 0:16:25.040 look at even smaller stuff, there are nine hundred thousand 0:16:25.080 --> 0:16:28.800 things that are smaller than ten centimeters. That's almost a 0:16:28.880 --> 0:16:32.160 million pieces of space junk, little tiny bits. But those 0:16:32.200 --> 0:16:34.600 they can't track, and they that's just an estimate. These 0:16:34.600 --> 0:16:36.520 are not tiny bits. I mean ten centimeters. You know, 0:16:36.560 --> 0:16:39.080 we're talking to something the size of a baseball. Like 0:16:39.160 --> 0:16:42.040 that thing going at ten kilometers per second is not 0:16:42.120 --> 0:16:44.400 a tiny anything. But you're right, these things are too 0:16:44.400 --> 0:16:46.560 small for them to track. That's a lot of baseballs. 0:16:46.560 --> 0:16:48.520 It's a lot of baseballs. And then if you just 0:16:48.560 --> 0:16:51.200 say like any piece of junk, no matter what size, 0:16:51.560 --> 0:16:54.680 then there are more than a hundred million bits of 0:16:54.720 --> 0:16:57.560 space debris. And so where did all this stuff come from? 0:16:57.600 --> 0:17:00.920 Is it all just from you know, our astronauts being 0:17:00.920 --> 0:17:04.560 litter bugs or litter space bugs. Yeah, you know astronauts 0:17:04.560 --> 0:17:06.359 like the flame and hot cheetohs and they just crumple 0:17:06.440 --> 0:17:11.080 up the package and toss it over their shoulder. No, 0:17:11.240 --> 0:17:14.760 it comes from like satellites falling apart, you know, bits 0:17:14.880 --> 0:17:18.800 of paint flaking off of satellites. Also, we fired a 0:17:18.840 --> 0:17:20.639 lot of rockets into space, and we just sort of 0:17:20.680 --> 0:17:24.320 like leave those spent rocket stages and little bits of 0:17:24.359 --> 0:17:27.080 like frozen fuel that didn't get used up. We just 0:17:27.160 --> 0:17:30.440 generally haven't been thinking carefully about what kind of stuff 0:17:30.480 --> 0:17:33.200 will be left from our exploration of space because we thought, hey, 0:17:33.240 --> 0:17:35.120 space is so big and empty, it doesn't really matter 0:17:35.440 --> 0:17:38.679 if you create a thousand little shards of ice that 0:17:38.680 --> 0:17:41.399 are flying at really high speed. Wow, so it is 0:17:41.440 --> 0:17:43.840 getting crowded with joke. I mean, there aren't that many 0:17:43.840 --> 0:17:46.480 satellite but there's millions of bits of stuff out there. 0:17:46.640 --> 0:17:48.520 There are millions of bits of stuff out there, Yeah, 0:17:48.520 --> 0:17:51.920 flakes of paint, little bits of rocket motors, frozen coolant, 0:17:52.359 --> 0:17:55.000 and you know, sometimes it's stuff that was created sort 0:17:55.000 --> 0:17:57.960 of on purpose. Like in the sixties, the US and 0:17:58.040 --> 0:18:02.080 Russia had anti satellite weapons. We built special missiles we 0:18:02.080 --> 0:18:05.040 could fire at like the enemy's satellites because you know, 0:18:05.240 --> 0:18:09.119 maybe you don't want them flying their spy satellites over Colorado, 0:18:09.160 --> 0:18:10.640 and so you want to fire a missile to take 0:18:10.680 --> 0:18:15.520 out their satellite. Interesting space wars, space wars wars, Yeah, 0:18:15.760 --> 0:18:18.040 and China got in the game about ten years ago. 0:18:18.600 --> 0:18:21.640 They built a system and they tested it and they 0:18:21.680 --> 0:18:24.359 destroyed one of their own satellites, but it created a 0:18:24.560 --> 0:18:27.800 million pieces of space debris that are still up there. 0:18:27.880 --> 0:18:30.439 They blew something up as a test. Yeah, they fired 0:18:30.440 --> 0:18:32.840 a missile into space in two thousand seven, blew up 0:18:32.840 --> 0:18:35.639 one of their own defunct satellites and it created a 0:18:35.720 --> 0:18:45.600 million pieces of space junk. Great, thank you, China. And 0:18:45.680 --> 0:18:47.800 sometimes it is astronauts, you know, like there was one 0:18:47.800 --> 0:18:50.480 time an astraw lost a bag of tools. You know, 0:18:50.520 --> 0:18:52.640 you're out there on a spacewalk, you forget to clip 0:18:52.680 --> 0:18:54.840 it and the oops, it just sort of drifts away 0:18:54.880 --> 0:18:58.960 from you. And that was a Sandra Bullock movie. I 0:18:59.080 --> 0:19:02.280 seen that movie. Then that's the one part of that 0:19:02.320 --> 0:19:05.440 movie that was correct. Um An astronaut ones like lost 0:19:05.520 --> 0:19:07.520 spare glove, you know, so that kind of stuff is 0:19:07.520 --> 0:19:10.320 floating out there, but it's dwarfed by this sort of 0:19:10.440 --> 0:19:13.280 like a little just pieces of junk from satellites that 0:19:13.320 --> 0:19:16.040 are broken or smashed into each other. I wonder how 0:19:16.080 --> 0:19:18.680 that happens. You're like, you're out in space, you might die, 0:19:19.359 --> 0:19:21.479 but you take off your glove just just to like 0:19:21.600 --> 0:19:23.919 pick it a little something, and then whoops. You let 0:19:24.440 --> 0:19:26.600 you gotta open your flame and hot cheetos package, right, 0:19:26.600 --> 0:19:29.640 and you can't do those and those really thick gloves, yeah, 0:19:29.840 --> 0:19:32.440 those big thick fingers, and then you take the cheetos 0:19:32.480 --> 0:19:34.679 up and sort of bang them up against your space helmet. 0:19:34.720 --> 0:19:38.800 You know, this thing through the shooting use velcro fore 0:19:38.880 --> 0:19:42.120 the cheetos. No. I think there must have been an 0:19:42.119 --> 0:19:45.320 extra glove or something. But occasionally astronauts have job stuff 0:19:45.320 --> 0:19:48.240 that's not a big contribution to the space junk. Most 0:19:48.240 --> 0:19:50.240 of it is like flakes of paint and little bits 0:19:50.240 --> 0:19:53.200 of rocket cooliant and stuff like that, but it's still dangerous. 0:19:53.359 --> 0:19:56.680 And how much of that is our space cheetos? There 0:19:56.720 --> 0:20:00.840 are no Cheetos in space that I'm aware of. That's 0:20:00.840 --> 0:20:03.280 her first for you. Also, great, so that that's a 0:20:03.280 --> 0:20:05.040 lot of stuff out there, and so I guess now 0:20:05.080 --> 0:20:07.320 the question is it a problem? Is it going to 0:20:07.359 --> 0:20:09.560 be a problem, and what can we do about it? 0:20:09.720 --> 0:20:11.800 So let's get into that. But first let's take a 0:20:11.840 --> 0:20:27.400 quick break, all right. I know, so there are millions 0:20:27.440 --> 0:20:30.000 of pieces of debris out there in just in our 0:20:30.080 --> 0:20:33.200 immediate orbit, and some of them might be space cheetos, 0:20:33.240 --> 0:20:34.800 some of them might not be. We don't know what 0:20:34.840 --> 0:20:38.200 the Chinese or the Russians have been developing out there 0:20:38.280 --> 0:20:41.040 or testing. Maybe they have a system to launch cheetos 0:20:41.080 --> 0:20:45.720 into space at our satellites. Yeah, maybe cheetos are especially 0:20:45.720 --> 0:20:48.160 good at taking out spy satellites, you know, I mean, 0:20:48.240 --> 0:20:50.160 until you do the experiment, you never know the answer. 0:20:50.160 --> 0:20:52.840 You gotta keep an open minding science, right, Yeah, you 0:20:52.880 --> 0:20:55.959