We all know about the debris on the space. Its known to be in very huge amount and it is a threat to the satellites and other space vehicles out there. For this, some Australian scientists are planning to eliminate them with lasers. This sounds like something from a sci-fi movie. But this is actually what they are working on.
This project is likely to be working in the next ten years according to Matthew Colless, Director of the Australian National University's Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics.
“It’s important that it’s possible on that scale because there’s so much space junk up there” and “We’re perhaps only a couple of decades away from a catastrophic cascade of collisions that takes out all the satellites in low orbit.”
- Matthew Colless
Australia currently has a contract with NASA to track the space junk and to map them. The scientists believe that there are more than 300,000 debris pieces in space moving around the Earth's lower orbits at insane speeds.
The concept and aim of this project is to give the lasers lot of powers to illuminate them and zap the pieces of debris so they burn up and fall through the upper atmosphere. Colless also said that there is no risk of missing or hitting a good satellite with this laser as they target the junks precisely".
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