How can scientists track space junk after it re-enters Earth’s atmosphere and impacts the ground? This is what a recent study published in Science hopes to address as a team of scientists from the United States and United Kingdom investigated how seismic data can be used to track incoming space debris. This study has the potential to help scientists and engineers develop new methods for tracking space junk re-entering the Earth’s atmosphere, especially as the amount of space junk orbiting Earth continues to increase.
For the study, the researchers used a combination of open-source seismic data and data analysis techniques to track the Shenzhou 15 Orbital Module that entered the Earth’s atmosphere in April 2024. This module had been part of the Shenzhou 15 mission that launched in November 2022 but kept functioning in orbit long after the crew returned to Earth. The goal of the study was to develop new tracking methods for re-entering space debris that could literally rain down over unsuspecting populations and bring potential toxic waste. In the end, the researchers found that their new method successfully tracked the Shenzhou 15 Orbital Module during its re-entry, including speed, trajectory, descent angle, and direction of fragments as it broke apart.
“Re-entries are happening more frequently. Last year, we had multiple satellites entering our atmosphere each day, and we don’t have independent verification of where they entered, whether they broke up into pieces, if they burned up in the atmosphere, or if they made it to the ground,” said Dr. Benjamin Fernando, who is a a postdoctoral research fellow at Johns Hopkins University and lead author of the study. “This is a growing problem, and it’s going to keep getting worse.”
How will this new seismic data method help track incoming space junk in the coming years and decades? Only time will tell, and this is why we science!
As always, keep doing science & keep looking up!
Sources: Science, EurekAlert!