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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.'"
"A small stone from the universe"
Not to be confused the all of the rocks being thrown at us from outside of the Universe.
Actually I believe current mapping is of objects down to a sizable fraction of a meter - the stuff that would likely cripple or destroy a spacecraft on impact no matter where it hit. For smaller stuff - pebbles, nuts and bolts, etc. that will still easily punch a hole through anything it hits we don't have the infrastructure in place to do a meaningful orbital mapping and must reply on luck and kinetic shielding - often many, many layers of material that can get "blown off" on impact, dissipating projectile energy before it reaches the inner hull (I don't know if the ISS uses that technique or not)
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Their ZPM may be close to depleted
Especially solar cells that keep getting holes punched in them ... sorry, had to ...
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
> Intercepting "these small projectiles" is not a good idea since they are travelling at orbital velocities (25000km per hour).
Their speed relative to Earth has no bearing on it; what matters is the relative speed between the random object and the object you wish to protect, just as the fact that we revolve around the sun at 30 km/s has zero impact ;) on how long it takes you to drive to work (or hop on your bike for cheetos and mountain dew for those who cannot relate because they still live in mommy's basement ;)). If they could launch an interceptor from the protected vehicle to divert or simply absorb kinetic energy and slow it to a harmless relative velocity, then it would be a success - whether or not more junk is created. I think protecting lives against an immediate threat in that situation is more important than the concern of additional junk.
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