Space junk, satellites and lasers
What goes up, must come down. Fears this week around the Tiangong 1 Chinese satellite and its uncontrolled re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere have reignited the debate around space junk, bits and pieces of useless trash humankind has shot into space and then largely forgotten about orbiting our planet. It’s a serious issue, one that could potentially mean the end of our day-to-day use of satellite technology and keep us from launching spacecraft. In order to counteract that and the risk of space junk, some scientists have proposed the use of laser technology to “shoot it down”.
We spoke to Brad Tucker, Astrophysicist/Cosmologist from the Mt. Stromlo Observatory at the Australian National University.
