Linda Hall: Now we are littering space

Linda Hall, Assistant Editor, Hawke's Bay Today.

I knew humans had made a mess of the planet but until I saw the picture of the space junk floating around in space I didn't realise what a mess we had made of the universe.

I've written often about the state of the environment and we all know what state our waterways are in but after seeing that picture I think we are in a lot more trouble than I thought.

It's not scaremongering to say that the entire world needs to take action.
This weekend we all waited to see where the Chinese Space Station Tiangong-1 - the size of a double decker bus - would land.

Scientists assured us that it would break up as it re-entered the earth's atmosphere but considering they lost control of the satellite in the first place and had no idea where it was going to land, I really didn't have much confidence in their guesses.

Imagine what damage it could have caused if it landed smack in the middle of a city. As it happened, according to BBC News, it "mostly broke up as it re-entered the earth's atmosphere above the South Pacific" — more junk in our oceans.

What else is up there and why? Why do we need all these things going round and round up there.

I can't believe that it will have no impact on the universe sooner or later.

I freely admit that I know nothing much at all about what goes on in space. I know a little about the planets and love looking up at the stars and moon on a clear night

However until I saw that photo of all those things up there I hadn't taken much notice. So I asked Mr Google — what is space junk?

"Space debris (also known as space junk, space waste, space trash, space litter or space garbage) is a term for the mass of defunct, artificially created objects in space, most notably in Earth orbit, such as old satellites and spent rocket stages. It includes the fragments from their disintegration, erosion and collisions. As of December 2016, five satellite collisions have resulted in generating space waste.

"As of 5 July 2016, the United States Strategic Command tracked a total of 17,852 artificial objects in orbit above the Earth, including 1419 operational satellites. However, these are just objects large enough to be tracked. As of July 2013, more than 170 million debris smaller than 1cm (0.4 in), about 670,000 debris 1–10cm, and around 29,000 larger debris were estimated to be in orbit. Collisions with debris have become a hazard to spacecraft; they cause damage akin to sandblasting, especially to solar panels and optics like telescopes or star trackers that cannot be covered with a ballistic Whipple shield (unless it is transparent)."

That's from almost two years ago — goodness knows what the count is now. I had no idea what was going on above me.

And that's the problem. We go about our daily lives not really thinking about the consequences of our actions.

That's how our rivers have got in such a state. We all should have been watching closer. It's no good blaming the council or farmers. We all need to take a little bit of responsibility — for buying our food wrapped in plastic, for taking it home in plastic bags, for not recycling years and years ago.

I've said it before and I'll say it again - we need to take action now.

I know people are unhappy about the regional council rate increase but that money will hopefully go a long way to fixing our water — it's a small price to pay at this stage.

■ Linda Hall is assistant editor of Hawke's Bay Today