Speeding Object Makes Small Hole In the ISS Solar Array

New submitter cute_orc writes "The International Space Station has been hit by a small object. Chris Hadfield, an astronaut currently on the ISS, described it in his Twitter feed as 'a small stone from the universe.' He also said he was glad it didn't hit the hull. Jim Scotti, a planetary scientist from the University of Arizona, thinks the object may have had a different origin: 'It's unlikely this was caused by a meteor; more likely a piece of man-made space debris in low Earth orbit.'"

Comments

Re:Any way to see them coming?

[Lightsider01]

Vaporizing them isn't going to help much and it takes too much energy. It also has the risk of generating *more* space junk, just smaller. However, there is a proposal to use lasers against the growing cloud of space junk in orbit. This plan, however, isn't to vaporize them. The plan is to use the small momentum generated by photons to cause the junk to deorbit. http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2013-04/29/laser-space-junk