Lasers to help clean Space Junk, says study by Riken Research Institute
The advancement in Space technology sure has some drawbacks, the major one being the plethora of Space Junk floating around in the Earth's orbit. The scientists have defined the Space Junk (Debris) as a collection of non-functional manmade apparatus such as old satellites, rocket stages, and broken fragments that continue in the Blue Planets Orbit or re-enter its atmosphere.
To counter the above researchers at the Riken Research Institute, Tokyo have published in the latest version of Acta Astronautica that this problem could be solved by shooting down the space debris lasers and a wide telescope. Moreover, researchers at NASA have estimated that about 500,000 pieces the size of a rock are orbiting the Earth.
Furthermore, The Christian Science Monitor reports that the space debris would be tracked by using the Extreme Universe Space Observatory mounted on the International Space Station using the super wide field telescope. Moreover, the space debris would be observed using the EUSO and shot down using the high efficiency fiber laser which would throw the debris into the Earth's atmosphere wherein it would burn out. Moreover, the laser pulses would be transferred using the light weight, flexible optical fibers.
Moreover, The Space Reporter reports that the scientists have claimed that this method could be used to shoot down about 3000 tons of debris. However, the next and the most important step in this regard involves simulating this experiment on a smaller scale using a 20cm Telescope and a 100 strand laser mounted on the International Space Station to account for the effectiveness of the scientist's claims. If the practical turns out to be as good as the theory then it would be a large leap in the field of Space Technology.