As we ramp up our endeavours into space, there is bound to be some side effects. Decades of our various activities up there in the orbit and beyond have not been without accompanying traces.

There are around 500,000 pieces of space debris or space junk floating around in orbit around our planet and it is getting to a point where it can soon start hindering with our space efforts.

That is why there have been a lot of talks recently about space junk and what can be done about it. Rest assured that our activities in space are only going to increase as the years pass by and so it will be a constant problem with a constant solution required, pretty much like how we have garbage disposle system here on Earth.

Recently, a team out of UK demonstrated one of the many ways that could deal with space junk. Their method includes using a net to capture the different sized pieces floating about in space.

Space Net To Solve The Problem?

A team from the Surrey Space Centre in the UK launched a satellite called "RemoveDEBRIS" in April to the International Space Station. The satellite was again launched from the ISS this past Sunday to demo the debris trapping technology.

The satellite then released a small object to act as a piece of debris and then it shot a net that captured the small object. This, the team says was exactly what they wanted and say that this marks the success of the experiment.

For now, the net along with the encaptured object inside it will simply fall to the atmosphere and burn up, but if and when this technology is deployed for real, the net will remain tethered to the satellite which would then pull the piece of space debris down towards the atmosphere.

One problem with this method is that, there would be lots of nets required and each piece of space debris would need to be captured individually which could take a lot of time, effort and money.

An Imminent Threat

Image Credits: Miguel Soares

Hopefully one or the other method can soon be developed and launched full-fledgedly to curb the issue of space junk which are already starting to prove a menace to our space programs.

In the future, there will be even more space junk and even more space programs. So, it is of vital importance that something be done about this asap.

I wonder what form of tech will work best though. Whether to push the debris out into deep space, to push them down to Earth or destroy them in orbit. I think it will be a mix of at least two of these methods.

In any case, I am hopeful that researchers will come up with something quick and necessity is always the mother of innovation.