Author: Gautam Puri

“Unusual Marks On Moon Soil – If not humans ,then ?”

Space missions and experiments have become a field of research as we acknowledge new discoveries with every trip to space . Human advancement in space and related technology in the late 50’s led to sending satellites in space and later in the late 60’s landing on the Moon opened new phases for human understanding of space. Since then humans have achieved new advancement in the technologies and the machine which has opened many of these new operations. Landing on the moon was a great step for humans to understand their ability to travel to different planets too. Spacex is coming up with their idea of sending manned spacecraft to Mars in the early 20’s . It Is expected to carry astronauts by 2024 and are planning a full setup forming base for humans. 

But as we know the last mission which landed on the moon was dated Dec 17 1972 . Various other astronauts have made a moon walk and left their remains as footprints still present on the surface of the moon. Eugene Cernan and Harrison Smitt hold the record to be the last men walking on the moon. This mission accomplished the longest moonwalk and collected more than 500 samples of this lunar soil. They covered a distance of 20 miles with the help of a lunar rover, collecting samples and understanding terrain, while driving around. The remains or the marks of their journey till remains as we see through satellite. Due to absence of winds , there is no phenomenon which could move or distort those marks. NASA high resonance cameras recorded those prints present there after more than 3 and a half decades since the last landing on the moon. In 2009 . 

But some other picture depicting the marks of footprints shocked the scientists as soon as they saw them. These were more than the size of a normal human being and were following a trail depicting a proper moment over the surface. It is just like we leave a trail on the deserts , but due to wind it gets hidden or distorted. But on the moon the scenario is different but the marks remain forever as there is no wind to distort them. It was interesting to notice these movements or marks since they were present about “30 miles from the landing site, while humans have never travelled on the surface of moon for more than 20 miles.” 

But since we do question the existence of life in space , scientists were interested to know what could be the reasons for those if not humans or Aliens. So they came up with the thoughts like :

  1. They could be due to meteors which do hit and Impact the surface of the moon. But still doubted as the occurrence is in a straight line . While meteors and asteroids do hit and make craters which we see, but not a line. 
  2. Other scientists came up with a belief that these could be a tube of lava. We know that there are a number of volcanoes on the surface of moons. Scientists believe that there is still lava present inside the surface and is still running  causing lava tubes to form . We could come up with this observation as is the case on earth and there are various tubes through which lava still flows. 
  3. These tubes are supposed to be as long as several kilometers under the surface of the moon. 

There could be many other beliefs of scientists, but the belief in tubes, if it is there, can be beneficial for humans to set up their base on the moon. It is believed to be strong, tough and resistant from external damage. This could be safe from the radiations and also provide suitable temperatures for humans. Along with those would also save from meteors which do fall frequently on the surface. But it could be an issue of concentration, since we know that lava still flows underground through this tube and we are not sure that these caves are dead or not, so it could be an area of concern if we do reach the moon and set up base in them. 

“The unusual activities or observations do bring out the fascination of humans to know about thee. The major field humans are working on is to find life in space, and observations like these do keep those expectations alive.But if not, we do find out something new every time which could help us in near future, in understanding space. And thus making our future travel and trips more secure . “

 

“Proxima B – Planet supporting life?”

Humans have been developing technologies and doing research in the field of space since the last 5-6 decades. We have been successful in launching various space missions which include launching satellites, landing on moon in late 60’s, satellite and rover to Mars and many others. With  the help of these missions and discoveries made by them, we are able to understand space and various other phenomena in it with a close view. The Hubble telescope, launched in 1990 has helped us to view space very closely and helped us to know about the existence of other planets at distance as well as centauries. Since these observations do facinate humans and the desire to explore it more, we are developing new technologies which would help us to reach out to these planets. The closest planet which we are in the run to land on is Mars. As per the plans of Spacex, they are planning a manual spaceflight to Mars by 2024. 

But there have been other observations also, and we have achieved results which do show the presence of planets like earth. We are still finding the question of existence of life on other planet and thus brings up the curiosity of humans to find them and reach them out. We have been able to find out many planets which have possibilities of life on them, but we do not have the desired technology to reach these due to the distance barrier as they are situated at various light years. But still there does exist a chance to reach one of them named “Proxima-B”.

  1.  This planet is supposed to be the same size as Earth and lie at a distance of 4.24 light years . It was found in the nearest Alpha centauri. 
  2. Proxima B revolves around a star named Proxima Centauri and is supposed to be at a distance suitable for supporting life on it. It lies at a distance of 75 lakhs kilometre and has an expected time to complete its orbit around it’s stars is 11.2 Earth days. But Due to the smaller size of its star, Proxima B lies in the habitable zone as per the experts.
  3.  It is supposed to have water reserves if it has an atmosphere around it. As per the computer model and analysis, it does give the possibility of atmosphere and water. 
  4. Some scientists also believe that as this lies close to its star, it could be tidally locked, like the moon. This means that one side if this planet remain s towards the star and the other remains in dark . This suggests the possibility of keeping the area hot which faces the star, while others remain cold. This suggests the life to be supported at the border area. But it’s just a belief and scientists do have a conflicting thought on this. 

But the main question which comes to mind is “Can we reach there with the same technology we use for other planets and how long will it take”. It’s believed that with the current technology it would take thousands of years to reach Proxima -B thus making it a difficult task with the current technology. But scientists are working on unmanned vehicles which can be light weight and thus able to reach it. Breakthrough starshot technique is being tested for the same and it’s believed we can reach Proxima -B through this. It is believed it would just take 15-20 year to reach this planet as they would be travelling at very high speed. These would be working on lightsail instead of rockets to work and go beyond the distance. Once they are made, they would be left in the earth orbit and laser light would be travelling to them which would power them and would thus move towards the destination. At an expected speed of 1/20th speed of light. 

It seems that some of these technologies and work experiment could help us reach out to the nearest of planets which could support life but there are some of problems with these, which are:

  1. These would be really expensive experiments. 
  2. We still do not know how to stop these vehicles once they reach out there. Which surely means we would have less time analyze the planet and soon it will pass it 
  3. Surety of life isn’t confirmed. 

“So these experiments bring out the hope of life and our possibilities to reach them out. Scientists and their teams are working on research work and ideas which could make this dream a reality and could help us to reach out other life forms of dynasties if possible and thus opening new life possibilities , adventures, risk but with learning being the better probability”. 

Natural Calamities – Uncertainty and different Possibilities.

Nature is a divine power and we humans still face challenges to fight back its cruelty and become tougher to survive during its duration and the time after it’s gone. These calamities are all natural, and these include earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes, cyclones and various others which do question the survival of human and other living breeds on this planet. These have been a part of earth atmosphere and earth is confined to happening of these every year in various parts of the world. There have been times when these calamities have peaked up and had shown their devastating phase harming both men and material. We have seen earthquakes of magnitude 9.5 in early 60’s in Chile, , we have seen floods, typhoons, tsunamis and many more which have been proven to be deadliest. 

We hear about these hurricanes and cyclones or typhoons each meaning the same. These differ in their names on the basis of their presence, like we often name tropical storms of high speed as hurricanes in the North Atlantic Ocean, while similar strong winds are named as cyclones in South pacific and Indian oceans. These are usually storms which are rotating at high speeds. We know that pressure is low near these tropical areas because the air is warm . These form when the warm and moist air over the ocean rises  this attracts the nearby colder air to accumulate nearby by forming the swirls of air. The moist air continues to rise and thus cools, forming clouds. These clouds usually continue to swirl and thus go on expanding. These hurricanes can be really strong and effective and thus cause a lot of destruction to the area which is hit with it. 

So we do acknowledge how these hurricanes can be really harmful for us and thus cause a lot of destruction but “What if 2 or more hurricanes coming from distant areas collide, what would be the result and how would it affect the humans”. This Phenomenon of two hurricanes coming close don’t happen often but scientists believe that it do happen. But The Fact to concentrate is that scientists also believe that these could become a common calamity as the temperature of earth’s rising, it would really be a bad experience if one came across such scenario of two hurricanes colliding. So it’s believed that if the two hurricanes are of equal size and strength, they would orbit around a common centre. This could result in sending or pushing them back in different directions or maybe it could end this due to collision. But if one is bigger in size or strength, then the smaller one would get absorbed in the  bigger one, which can increase the power and strength and life span of the hurricane. This could really impact humanity by it’s destruction. 

“Climatologists  believe that in future times these could become common and the speed of these winds could increase significantly since the earth temperature is rising. These would lead to rise of more storms in the tropical areas. We believe that it’s all natural and humans can’t do anything about these. But since we understand the importance of “Global Warming” and “Climate Change”, which is affecting earth’s temperature to rise. We could strongly work on our carbon emissions and factors leading to these phenomena. We can shift to a better source and mode of technology and infrastructure which would not only help us fight with increasing global warming but also protect us during occurrence of these natural calamities. We humans do have a bigger part in these natural calamities which we hide to blame and thus question our nature everytime”. 

“Time Crystals – New Form Of Matter”

Space theories and phenomena have challenged human’s understanding about it every time with new observations and experiments. We have been trying to understand different kinds of constituents present around us irrespective of their presence on our surface or outside our planet. New findings with the increasing research and ideas have led to solving a number of theories which earlier were just meant to be theoretical until practically proved. Just long as our knowledge about space is increasing through our frequent visits to space, it is increasing our complexities with new discoveries . One of these experiments which was earlier believed to be just a theory with little physical significance was the discovery of “Time Crystals”. The idea of the time crystal came a few years ago in 2012 came by the scientists, discovering a new state of matter which truly exists. The interesting fact about these particles is their properties which differentiated in their atomic structure repeats themselves in space and time. 

But the initial question is “What are these time crystals?” To understand this we would start by understanding actually these crystals are. Crystals are solid particles having constituents like atoms, molecules and other charged molecules are present in well defined order, which thus forms chain and forms the base for the next later. The layering up of these small molecules continues and thus follow up a specified pattern which reflects back the light and we do see it. These patterns of molecules follow a specified pattern in space and do not get affected by time. This means that if we see a normal crystal particle, it would remain the same as it is for years, until we or any other forces destroy it. Time crystals have some different properties. This means that the particles do follow the same pattern in space but also follow up with time and that these particles do not have fixed shape and size. These are most commonly known as now equilibrium matter because of their inability to come to rest once they come in motion. 

The basic difference between a normal crystal or any other matter particle and time crystal can be understood with an example. Consider crystal particles to be big enough to see, so if we apply force on one particle of the crystals, it would get transferred to the next particle and so on in the pattern they are arranged, until it get finally absorbed, since energy is lost in this process in transferring from one molecule or particle to other. But time crystal or non equilibrium matter are attached in repeated pattern. These present quantum entangled patterns, and as soon as energy reaches the entangled atom,, the next pair gets information before it’s gonna be transferred to , which means it starts moving before the energy reaches it, thus leading to cause motion in all the atoms or particles. This could be considered as an infinite motion or movement since no energy is getting lost.l and are not able to achieve equilibrium. It could be related to a perpetual motion machine which could work without an energy source forever, but which is impossible. So there were various doubts in this theory and thus it was just considered to be theoretically only. 

“But it has been found that time crystals do exist through different experiments done by scientists. And could be beneficial for future use.Right and better use of time crystals haven’t been found yet, but it’s sure that these particles are surely changing our research and opening new phases to space research and understanding about universe”. 

 

“Next-Gen Space Technology”.

Space technology and research related to it have often been very complex, compound and in short not easy.Different difficulties while in manufacturing, launching or even while reaching in space have been observed while through our journey to space. But all these efforts have helped us to learn from them and make more better and effective machines and technology capable of least threat to the mission and auto repairable. Since our first space flight in late 50’s and then landing of first manual flight in the second half of 60’s gave all the hard work and dedication and a true payoff. Since then we humans have been into this space business and have been putting more of our efforts in building these technologies both with ideas and thus with much better implementation. But along with these , development of other new techniques of manufacturing and building new things also came across all these years. Man’s Dream to build homes on the moon and a proper base on it along with the same on Mars is the next big mission of the space agencies, especially like NASA and Spacex. But for all these we do require to make a proper base at these places so that humans could start the initial processes and thus the dream becomes a reality. 

But the main issue which surely is interfering in the mission is “How to set up base on these places knowing the difficulties involved with it”. It’s difficult to carry building material from our surface to these for obvious reasons. Then what could be the best thing which were can do to overcome these troubling factors. When these companies were thoroughly entangled with this issue, a company name “MadeInSpace” came up with a brilliant idea which could be used to solve the problem of carrying loads and building materials to space and also much manual work. They came up with the idea of 3-d printing. 3-D printing is a technique used these days to manufacture things just by giving the command to the machine and with the help of plastic , metal, carbon fiber, and many  more. 

The idea of 3-d printing came in early 70’s and was brought into practice by 1980’s.in this printing, a design of any object is made using the software and then this printing machine creates the object by just printing out the shape by laying layer after layer so as to obtain the desired shape. There were numerous benefits of this printing observed which included:

  1. Economical
  2. Accuracy in shape
  3. Took less time for manufacturing. 
  4. Difficult designs could easily be manufactured. 
  5. Durable
  6. Better quality and finishing of object
  7. Reducing the risk of manufacturing as less manual power is used
  8. Reduction in wasting of material 
  9. And many more

This technology significantly brought a change in production of objects and their quality. So made in space brought up the idea of manufacturing of these space based and various tools through 3-d printing. The idea was revolutionary but still the agencies doubted on the efficiency and working of these machines in space. Sp for this, as in collaboration with MadeInSpace sent a 3-d machine in 2014 . The machine manufactured the object from plastic which was from earth and regolith which is the powder rock and the objects were commanded to be printed. And the mission was successful as strong objects were able to be printed. So this technique made it very easy to set up base or anything easy to be made in space and thus reducing the material required to be sent for manufacturing them. This truly is beneficial as the moon soils rock Regolith which is converted into powder form, thus we just need to send plastic material which wood be mixed with the regolith and would be passed on through a heated nozzle to get the desired shape. 

“With the help of this technique it would be feasible for us to send things in space which could manufacture and assemble themselves. These are truly revolutionary technologies which truly will open our approach to space, along with different possibilities, new adventures and certain different problems which might even be solved soon in the future with other better ideas and technologies”. 

“Satellites And Their Outweighing Assistance”.

The era which we see around is a total definition of how technology and science have made our life’s more comfortable and entertaining. We use technology in everything we admire to work on, be it our smartphones, vehicles ,cooking and many more. Our life is incomplete without these applications and thus are an important part of our day today activities. But these technologies are not only limited to this planet only. We have been able to accomplish the goal to reach the space with all the research work and various new ideas to develop the required technologies for them. The journey to space started with the launch of a satellite to it and till date it’s no looking back. We have sent a number of satellites to space irrespective of their size, rockets and even human beings. These surely have helped human in many way out. Satellites have been a part of our life for more than 5-6 decades and helped humans depending up on their needs. 

So the first question which comes to the mind of any individual is “What really is a satellite and how is it able to perform different activities”. We have been using satellites in anything we use today. Be it for watching television, weather reports, calling, GPS,Defence and many more. We are surrounded by technologies which do work with the help of these satellites and make our life more and more simple. So these satellites are objects which orbit our earth by remaining in its orbit. These are usually artificial satellites as these are man made, while the moon being our only natural satellite which do orbit our earth. The size of these orbits depends on the type of function they are meant for. These could be as small as mobile in your hand and could be as big as any vehicle or more. 

So “How these satellites work and get power from”. It’s difficult for us to charge these satellites regularly by bringing them back and also very costly. So these use the solar energy as power source for their functioning. Solar panels are usually attached on  the sides of these satellites, which trap the solar radiation and thus generate power. These usually consist of a transmitter in between which transmits the signal which they receive. These can also be controlled by the motors which are used either to change its orientation , if it gets deflected from its orbit or sometimes to power them so as to get away from any space debris coming in the same orbit which could surely harm the satellite. These satellites usually are divided on the basis of the phases or zones they work in. These could be named as:

 

  1. LEO or Low Earth orbit. – These satellites orbit our earth at a height ranging from 160-1600 km. 
  2. MEO or Medium earth orbit– These orbit earth at an height of 10000km to 20000 km and thus are placed at distant places from earth. These are widely used for navigation and locating places. 
  3. HEO or High earth orbit- These stay in orbit of earth to the farthest of points which is 36000 km and are also called geostationary satellites and rotate with the speed of earth and widely used for communication. 

 

“These satellites and technologies related to have more often helped us in many ways,and would be befitting in future also. But the only thing these add up to is the space debris.These are more often remained in space when there time period gets completed and are left to lose out in deep space. But all of this adds up as junk in space and might be harmful in our future trips to space. But usage of these satellites are more than their disadvantages , and thus have made life on earth More comfortable, knowledgeable and also given birth to a lot more complexities with it”. 

“Tachyons And The Question Of Their Existence”

Space travel and other space related phenomena have always fascinated mankind towards them and thus has initiated space research and various programs to probably see these with a closure reference. Many theories and researches came along those journeys which made humans believe in the possibility of space travel or even time travel. Success if our mission to the moon and landing on it gave this dream a reality  and the mission to Mars gave further hope to travel to these planets. But there were also various other theories which came up to the existence of a multiverse and parallel universe which fascinated people . But to Reach these places we had to cross the barrier which Einstein gave in his Special Theory of Relativity . States that we cannot travel at speed light as it requires enormous amounts of energy since these places were some light years ahead of us. Which brought up the possibility of a Wormhole and various other theories related to it. It gave us the description of the shortest path which we can travel without breaking the rules of general relativity. 

But all this research brought us to the knowledge of particles which are believed to have speed equal to or more than that of light. These particles were named “Tachyons”. These are hypothetical particles which are believed to exist in our universe travelling with the speed faster than that of light. Since we know through general relativity that the speed of light is the highest speed which anything can have and travel with . The theory relates to the fact that “if any object is travelling initially slower than the speed of light, then it could not travel with the speed of light in any way possible”. It is observed in some smaller particles like photons which do travel with the speed of light and thus also always travel with the same speed. There must exist a possibility of particles which do travel with the speed greater than light and thus always travels at greater speed. 

Thus Tachyons can be considered as particles which have properties and characteristics different from the ones we acknowledge in our surrounding and our research work. This is because of their higher speed. So the main properties which may be present in these particles could be that “while solving the mathematical equation, the rest mass or the proper length or the proper lifestyle would be considered imaginary”. Confused. Let’s see an example. 

1.In special relativity theory, we get relative mass by the formula:

m= m°/√1-(v^2/c^2) 

Where m is the object in mass and m° is the rest mass of the object. Since in our case Tachyons travel with more speed than light thus v>c , we will get a negative number in the square root which gives us imaginary number i. So if we keep the rest mass as an imaginary number, both the imaginary terms get canceled out and we can surely find out the solution of the equation. Similar goes with proper length and life time.

2. Also it is believed that as the speed of tachyon I will increase, energy would significantly decrease as per the “Cherenkov radiation”. Cherenkov radiation is a process which tells us that when any particle is moving with the speed greater than light in any medium, it gives out blue glow which is due to interaction and thus it may lose energy. 

3. It is also believed that we can send messages to the past through Tachyons. 

“But as we see through many  researches, it shows that their existence is possible and thus could be present in our surrounding space. There are many physicists who believe that their existence may not be possible, as they raise different paradoxes . But as such no physical existence of such particles have been seen in any of the experiments conducted till date. So it makes them completely Hypothetical but with the belief to be detected soon, if they do exist”. 

“Can Wormhole – Be Someday a Bypass to New Possibilities”?

Science and technologies have helped humans to survive and life their lifestyle with utmost comfort and facilities. These have not only opened opportunities to new ideas but also have made things possible which at times were even difficult to imagine. Every individual has their own dreams and wishes which they want to be true one day. But the fantasy and desire which each individual has in their life especially in their childhood to travel to space and see how life’s out there, irrespective of the thought and difficulties attached to it. But man with the development of ideas and better technology have been able to bring this dream to something practical and was able to send things to space in the late 50’s. But what initially got the attraction was the man’s first landing on the natural satellite – Moon in the late 60’s , which transformed the technology and the way every individual saw space to different phases. With this we humans were able to accomplish various other achievements like that of satellites, space exploration and the most important, International Space Station. With all these space missions and human interference as common visit to space opened the door to the thought of space travel and people were and are really keen to visit space ones in their lifetime and even to other planets be in this galaxy or other. “But is it really possible” ? 

Man has been figuring out different ways and ideas to reach to different planets, not only in this galaxy but also to the other. All help from various satellites to visualise different space objects and phenomena. There are many possibilities of life on most of the planet but it’s difficult to reach these planets as these are various light years apart. Which surely means that to reach these planets we must manufacture a spacecraft traveling at a speed of light or more, which contradicts the statement of Einstein and limits our reach. According to Einstein theory or the famous Theory of Relativity, any object which has a certain mass cannot travel with the speed of light, as it would require an enormous amount of energy or the ideal system to produce energy which won’t get exhausted soon. So it surely makes it ideally impossible to reach out these planet at these distance. 

But still there are possibilities to reach out these planets as per different theories even without breaking the Theory of Relativity. The existence of Wormholes, still a questionable part and still exists only in theories. As per the general relativity theory by Einstein, it tells about how gravity really works and why it works. According to his theory, gravitation works by the bending of space due to the weight of the planets and stars. It thus forms a curved path, which helps them to revolve around each other. So more the weight of the planet or object, the more it will bend the space. So the main belief which Einstein had in this theory was that, it is possible to create a shortcut between any two objects as they “Create bend in space  thus connecting those through an invisible path connecting them both through space and time. So it brought out the possibility to travel in space, by bending it”. 

So is it really possible to travel through these Wormholes, there are things which do contradict travelling through it. Since no significant occurrence of these have been observed in our nearest surroundings. Also it is believed that these are really small which might not fit the space ship or spacecraft into it. So we need to expand it so as to travel through them. Exotic matter can be a way out in such condition. Exotic matter is something which also has no existence but scientists are into making it. Exotic matter is totally different from the normal matter. It is believed that exotic matter has negative energy density and pressure. So This could be used to push back the walls of the wormhole and create enough space for the spacecraft to enter it.But it’s believed  that as soon as we enter a wormhole, the wormhole can destroy and thus we would die in it . Also there are possibilities which barely makes it difficult for us to return back to our time period, as we would travel to different times. Also the existence of another wormhole would still be a matter of thought and not sure would exist or not. 

 

“It’s really fascinating to hear about all this and know about the research going in this field, it might seem to be dangerous but still we are into making it possible through our technological aspects as well as through various research in space. It’s still a question to doubt time travel or space travelling to other planets is possible or not and will be able to do so. But it’s also believed that anything which is mathematically driven, is possible. So let’s wait for better beat to enter a new era of possibilities”.

“Earth,Mars and the Human Connection”

Man and technology have evolved as the industrial revolution started. Which not only served the base for new technology and methods in manufacturing but also motivated people to be a part of it by involving in it as scientists, workers and even the buyers by shifting to urban areas to work for their livelihood. This not only changed the world, but also introduced it to a new phase and living of lifestyle. Today we acknowledge different things in our surroundings, including technology in its manufacturing. This technology has helped humans since ages, and to bring up more comfort to his life. The thought every individual had initially was different difficulties, which made them believe it wasn’t possible, but with the essence of togetherness ,we all made it possible. But the biggest and the massive investment and technological advancement was brought up by the idea to go in the space. The dream which every one had in their childhood, became reality, and we humans have been able to do it. 

Advancement in this science and technology and various other gadgets is not limited, rather growing with new ideas pulling every day. But the next big idea which companies especially like Nasa and Spacex are working on, is to colonise Mars, by 2024. With Believes to make this planet a permanent home to live on. This idea was brought by CEO, founder of spacex Elon musk and has been working with Nasa and it’s team on this project. Humans have sent rovers and satellites to Mars to know various geographical and environmental aspects which have helped to know about it’s terrain and major gases in its atmosphere. 

But the main question which arises in the mind of each individual is “How would this be possible and What would these astronauts be doing at the red planet and would be their strategies”? So for this initially Spacex and Nasa would be sending it’s Big Falcon rockets on an unmanned missions which would be setting up the power sources ( the solar panel) and to mine so as to build their automated Propellent system and plant. The main work for this propellant plant would be to process the excess of carbon dioxide and water found in the surface of Mars to make oxygen and methane which would then be used as a propellant on the return back mission to earth. The sabatier process involved the usage of nickel catalyst to interact with hydrogen and carbon dioxide at high temperatures and pressure which results in the production of water and methane. This would be liquified and used fuel to come back .

But the most important thing to do is to set up their base on Mars which could be similar to the Internal Space station with expansions at each side. Talking about the essentials food and water, these astronauts would be carrying with them almost 2 years’ vault of food vacuumed with them like the one used in the International space Station. Nasa has also been working on the travel mode, which would be a rover-like thing being able to carry around 4-5 people on board even in the baddest and toughest areas if land.. 

“It would be a great adventure to see how humans are able to cross this barrier and prove the power of technologies of different aspects. This journey surely will be  filled with adventures, emotions, series of difficulties but with significant hope and the belief to overcome all of them and achieve success”.

“Space debris – A Piling threat”?

Development in science and technologies around the world since the last 8-9 decades over even more than that, humans interference and involvement in and with nature and atmosphere has been seen quite frequently. Be it cutting of trees through machines for making buildings, or destroying mountains, or through emissions by factories and industries in any direction one can pick, has led to an increase in pollution. All these activities through the collaboration of technology has made life of each and every individual residing in this planet more easier and comfortable along with every commodity and facility possible. Moreover we humans have succeed even to space with these technologies, and this have increased our horizon of research based on space, different cosmos and our reach to them. Over a successful attempt to land on the moon in the late 60’s ,proved that man can reach places with the utilization of his mind and putting it in the right direction and thus navigating it to achieve unknown possibilities. 

Human intervention in space and it’s activity has helped humans in a number of ways,and this opened the door to much more fields of action. Be it satellites for communications, or weather forecast or for defence or be it analysis of any space phenomenon happening at some light years or even knowing how our earth looks from the outside, this space exploration has helped mankind in countless ways and will be doing in many ways in near future. But all these activities and common trips to space has led us to face another problem which sooner and even now is affecting much of our activities being conducted in space and may be harming our future expeditions . Space debris, a common word to hear these days, with many of these falling back on earth while a number of thousands and lakhs still present in our orbit and above. 

Space debris could be defined as the junk which is no longer of any use. These could anything which ones got to space performs its function, became dysfunctional but never came back.  This could be remains of satellites or the particles of rockets which got destroyed in space after it’s work was no longer operational. These space debris have been a part of space as long as we have started our journey and more often trips to space. These have been significantly growing with times with limited actions in the attempt to reduce these. These space debris can be as big as a satellite itself and as small as a screw and even a smaller particle or object than it. 

There have been many instances when we humans have left things in space which later with time became a debris. Many human efforts other than this could be testing of anti satellite missile as tested by many countries like USA, China and even India. This surely has left a large amount of debris in space. As per the reports and sources, most of the damage in these spacecraft when they came back and tested were acknowledged to be from paint chips, other from steel and other damages by parts of other metals which have been left as a waste in the space after the explosion  of rockets. The consent of a space debris was not so common in the starting years, but as through our common intervention in space, the problem of space debris significantly saw a hike from 1% to 17% in a year which exceeded to 25% and at present it is 50% . Which is not a good figure for any company to be operational in space activity. . 

There have been many instances in space when these space debris hit the space station, and the crew had to repair it as soon as possible so as to reduce the dysfunctionality of the whole station and loss of any life. So for this more often they use shield-like structure which protects them from debris hitting whenever they get a warning from the headquarters of any debris prevailing in the nearby radius of the station. This sheet is known as  Whipple shield, which divides the coming particle or debris to break into smaller pieces after the collision, so  it protects the direct contact and greater damage to the ship. 

But the major issue is that every year a large budget is required to make the material of these ships stronger and impact resistance to bear any kind of damage due to debris, and a lot of investment is done in this sector. But unfortunately, we humans are still not able to notice much of the debris, and thus still damage the station and our satellites and we have to invest more in reconstructing them or repairing them by sending support from the ISS or from the ground, which thus proves to be quite costlier. 

But as per the experts, if we still not do anything, then a cluster of space debris would surround us and thus would trap us from moving out of this planet if we still not take a step in reducing this. There have been many efforts by space companies and especially by SpaceX  as they are using reusable rockets which do not explode or remain after their objective is completed rather come back and thus  can be used again, thus saving cost of making it again and reducing a greater amount of space debris. Particular ways out have still not been found to catch these debris as they travel at high speeds. But scientists are coming with the technology which could reduce the speed of these objects and fall down back to earth after leaving their orbits. One of such technology is a High power laser  which would be providing the opposite force to the object and thus slow it down. The other thing is to trap these down, but it requires a huge investment. But the bigger problem is if these space debris fall with or even with notice, these can be a harm to the people on the earth . So a proper planning and working would be done in accordance to attempt these. 

There are many companies which are utilizing this space junk to make business. Company name Werenbach are using these space junk to manufacture watches. So the utilization of these materials could help save a lot of material to be wasted and also save cost in making it. 

“We humans have polluted our space, and we are still continuing to do it. Strict rules and policies must be signed and worked on by every country in should perform this action of cleaning space debris in unity as this space belongs to every person and thus come up with ideas to sort this problem and thus clean out the junk before it’s late to take action”.