Sky Pollution-
Space Debris:
- In 1997 a 580 lb. fuel tank from the U.S. Delta II rocket (stage 2) landed in a field near an inhabited farm house in Texas. Nearby a woman was struck, but unhurt, by a metal piece of debris about the size of a soda can from the same rocket.
- Over 21,000 pieces of space trash >4" and 500,000 bits of space trash between 1cm-10cm exist orbiting our earth.
- A tiny fleck of paint can hit an object in space at the same impact as a 550 pound object hitting at 60mph on earth.
- Space debris can accidentally hit and damage functional satellites and space craft as well as other space debris creating even more broken up fragments of space debris.
- Most space debris will burn up in our atmosphere if it is falling out of orbit or will fall in the earth's oceans, but occasionally debris hits land. As of 2011, 6000 tons of human made space debris has landed on earth or in its oceans.
- In 1997 a 580 lb. fuel tank from the U.S. Delta II rocket (stage 2) landed in a field near an inhabited farm house in Texas. Nearby a woman was struck, but unhurt, by a metal piece of debris about the size of a soda can from the same rocket.
- In 2001 the Delta II rocket's third stage landed in Saudi Arabia.
- In 2011 a large tank from the failed space shuttle Columbia fell off the coast of Texas.
- Argentina was showered with glowing metal fragments when the Soviet Space Station Salyut-7 missed its route into the ocean. What can we do?
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Light Pollution:
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Air Pollution:
--> Check the air quality today in your area: https://airnow.gov/
So what can we do for a solution?
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TAKE ACTION -->
- Make a PSA (Public Service Announcement) to share your concern, educate others and suggest solutions about a topic of sky/space pollution that you choose.
- Create a flyer or poster (either by hand or on the computer with Paint, Word, or a free online creator like Glogster), a slide show (like Power Point, SlideShare, or a Prezi), or a video announcement.
- Share with someone and/or click "share your work" in the navigation menu to share on social media.