Source: Beijing Daily
Do you dare to believe that in these years, a piece of space junk can accurately smash through a mansion? It actually happened, and it took place in Florida, USA.
What is even more outrageous is that this piece of space junk that "caused the accident" was actually thrown by the Americans themselves three years ago. flew around the earth N times, and finally smashed directly through the roof of his house.
Is this a coincidence, or is it "retribution"?
"Cannonballs" fell from the sky and smashed through the roof
One day in March 2024, in an upscale residential neighborhood in Florida, the Outlaw family was enjoying a leisurely home time. No one expected that a sudden "disaster" was about to come.
There was a loud "boom", and before the Otlo family could react, they felt a violent vibration of the house.
Immediately afterward, the chandelier on the ceiling shook violently, dust fell, and something smashed through the roof.
The family panicked, was it an earthquake? Or did something explode?
Without thinking much about it, Otero hurriedly beckoned his family to leave the room and ran to an open place to hide.
After the shaking had stopped and it was safe to make sure it was safe, Outlaw cautiously returned to his room to check on the situation. He gasped at the sight of the sight: a large hole appeared in the previously intact ceiling, debris was scattered all over the ground, and the floor had been smashed into a hole, as if it had been pierced by some heavy object.
What the hell is this thing? Could it be...... Cannonball? Outlaw's heart raced, and a cold sweat broke out. He mustered his courage and followed the trail of destruction all the way to the basement.
In the dimly lit basement, a metal cylinder appeared in front of me. It lay silently on the floor, emitting an icy glow. Outlaw's heart was in his throat, could it really be a cannonball?
He didn't dare to approach rashly, just observed from a distance, and then called the police, who couldn't figure out what it was, and called the relevant experts to take it away for inspection.
After testing by experts, the final conclusion was that this thing that fell from the sky turned out to be space junk.
The "perpetrator" turned out to be his own garbage
Space junk? Outlaw couldn't believe that his home had been smashed by something from space. Sounds magical, doesn't it? It's even more bizarre than the plot of the movie.
What makes people laugh and cry even more is that this piece of space junk is nothing else, it is something that the Americans themselves discarded three years ago.
Things have to start in 2021.
At that time, there was a set of used batteries on the ISS that needed to be replaced. According to the plan, NASA will pack the batteries and send them back to Earth through specialized devices, or transfer them to safe orbit.
But plans can't keep up with the changes. Just as they were preparing to dispose of the batteries, NASA ran into a tricky problem: they found that a previous failed rocket launch had left the space station with more waste than expected, and it would take a lot of time and resources to dispose of it.
What to do? You can't leave this "garbage" on the space station forever.
After thinking about it, NASA finally made a "bold" decision: to directly discard this set of used batteries into space.
Of course, NASA also gave its own reasons: they claim that, according to calculations, these batteries will completely burn up after entering the atmosphere and will not pose any threat to the ground.
In this way, this group of waste batteries was "honoredly" given the title of "space junk" and began their long journey of space wandering.
Who would have thought that three years later, this group of "garbage" abandoned by the Americans would go around and around, fly around the earth for N circles, and then return to the embrace of the earth, and accurately hit Otlow's mansion.
This is a great irony.
The garbage that the Americans threw away themselves, but in the end it fell on the heads of their own people.
How to defuse a "time bomb" hanging overhead
The "catastrophe from the sky" of the Outlaw family really sounded the alarm bell for the world: space junk is not a science fiction thing, but a real "time bomb" hanging over our heads.
Maybe when you're walking on the road, a lump of metal will fall from the sky and hit the door of your head, do you feel a chill in your back just thinking about it?
What's even more terrifying is that as human beings desperately launch various satellite rockets into space, the amount of space junk is also rising like a rocket.
According to statistics, there are now more than 20,000 space junk with a diameter of more than 10 centimeters in the earth's orbit, not to mention those hundreds of millions of small fragments, which is even more chaotic than the garbage classification of some countries on the earth.
This space junk is not honestly standing still, it is all racing in Earth orbit at a speed of several kilometers per second.
If you crash into a working satellite or spaceship, the consequences are unimaginable.
Speaking of which, we have to mention the thrilling incident of 1983.
An American astronaut was on a spacewalk when he was nearly hit by a chip of paint that was only 0.2 millimeters in diameter.
There are more serious ones.
In 2009, a decommissioned Russian satellite had a "close contact" with a U.S. satellite that was in service, and as a result, it crashed into pieces, producing a large pile of space debris.
In order to deal with these "space junk", scientists are also heartbroken and have come up with a lot of tricks.
For those space junk that are relatively small, they can obediently enter the atmosphere on their own, rub against the air to generate heat, and finally burn into ashes, which can be regarded as "falling leaves and returning to their roots".
Another way is more gentle, for those relatively large space junk, equip them with parachutes, and let them slowly fall to the designated sea area, so as not to hit the flowers and plants.
There is also a more high-tech solution, which is to actively remove the technology. To put it simply, it is to use "high-tech weapons" such as lasers and robotic arms to directly "catch" or "fight" space junk cleanly.
But then again, each of these methods has its limitations.
For example, atmospheric combustion is only effective against small pieces of garbage, and parachutes and active removal techniques are too expensive and cumbersome, and the technical difficulty is quite high.
So, space junk is a real headache.
Epilogue:
But fortunately, more and more countries are now paying attention to this problem and are actively trying to solve it.
As a responsible major country, China is at the forefront of the world in this regard.
It has not only formulated strict space debris mitigation policies, but also developed various advanced monitoring and clean-up technologies, making great contributions to the protection of the space environment.
It is believed that with the joint efforts of all mankind, the "old and difficult" problem of space junk will one day be completely solved, and a clean and beautiful space environment will be restored to the earth.
Source:2024-04-16 14:14·Beijing Daily client "International Space Station Space Junk Smashes Chinese and American National Houses After 3 Years"