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The students created books to teach people about the solar system.

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We read this article in the first week of school, and we got really curious about it!

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There are nearly 2,800 working satellites in space. That's according to the Union of Concerned Scientists. We depend on these devices for technology we use every day, such as video calls and weather tracking. Scientists use them to study the Earth and space.

But many other satellites in orbit are broken and still floating around up there. Some of these eventually fall back toward the Earth. They either land or burn up in the atmosphere. Space junk is a problem. Debris floating around the Earth puts technology and future space missions at risk. Experts are working on a solution.

STR/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

Trash Trouble

Orbital debris is a type of space junk. It's any human-made object that has stopped working but continues to float around the Earth. This includes abandoned satellites and pieces of spacecraft. "It's a legacy × legacy TAB1962-GETTY IMAGE carried over from an earlier time (adjective) Grandma's house was a legacy gift. problem," Vitali Braun told TIME for Kids. He's an engineer at the European Space Agency (ESA). "You have a satellite or rocket stages put into space in the 1960s, and they're still there."

Space junk can also include fragments of objects. These occur when satellites collide with things. Or they result from an object crashing into an old rocket stage that has fuel in it. This can cause an explosion.

Heather Cowardin works at NASA. She says the United States is tracking more than 23,000 pieces of space debris (see "Too Much Junk"). These tiny fragments damage working satellites. This can affect research in space.

Cosmic Cleanup

ASTROSCALE

Companies are working to clean up the debris. Astroscale is one based in Japan. It plans to launch a mission called ELSA-d. The mission will try using magnets to collect space debris. The idea is to get companies to put magnetic plates on the satellites they launch. An Astroscale spacecraft could attach to the magnetic plate and remove the satellite when it failed.

ASTROSCALE

Another mission is led by a Swiss company called ClearSpace. ClearSpace plans to launch a debris-removal spacecraft in 2025. The craft will grab a piece of an old rocket, slow it down, and eject it back to Earth.

CLEARSPACE

Governments are trying to help too. Some are updating their space guidelines. This is to limit the amount of debris created. The sustainability × sustainability RADOMIR TARASOV/EYEEM/GETTY IMAGES the ability to do something without causing permanent damage to the environment (noun) One way to improve sustainability in schools is for students to bring in a resuable water bottle that they can refill at the water fountain. of space "is not a single-agency or a single-country problem that we can solve," says Cowardin. "We have to work on this together."

Too Much Junk

Thousands of marble-size fragments and millions the size of pencil lead are orbiting Earth. That's according to NASA's Heather Cowardin. Some result from satellites colliding with other objects. Cowardin says fragments can travel extremely fast. And they damage working satellites. This chart from ESA shows the increase in space debris over time.

SOURCE: ESA; BORDER ILLUSTRATION BY DREW WILLIS FOR TIME FOR KIDS BASED ON ICONS BY NEYRO2008-GETTY IMAGES

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There are nearly 2,800 working satellites in space. That's according to the Union of Concerned Scientists. We depend on these devices for technology we use every day, such as video calls and weather tracking. Scientists use them to study the...

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So we decided to keep exploring space!

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Sixty-six years ago, there was one human-built object in Earth's orbit: Sputnik, the world's first satellite. It was launched in October 1957. Try to guess how many human-made objects are circling the planet now. Ready?

The answer is 100 trillion. That's the number provided by a team of researchers writing in the journal Science. For years, a mass of junk orbiting Earth has been growing. It's a danger to spacecraft.

The researchers are calling for a global treaty treaty an official agreement between countries or parties (noun) My sister and I made a peace treaty and promised to quit fighting. . It would limit the amount of junk in space. Only a "legally binding treaty," they say, can "protect Earth's orbit."

SPACE FRONTIERS/ARCHIVE PHOTOS/HULTON ARCHIVE/GETTY IMAGES

High-Speed Danger

There are 9,000 active satellites in orbit, the scientists report. That could grow to more than 60,000 by 2030. The rest of that 100 trillion figure includes all kinds of junk: old booster rockets, bolts, metal flecks, and paint chips.

A tiny piece of debris can travel 17,500 miles per hour in space. The International Space Station is dotted with dents. Astronauts often take shelter in an attached spacecraft to wait out a passing swarm of space debris. If the station is severely damaged, they can bail out in a hurry.

NASA/GETTY IMAGES

All of this debris will eventually fall toward Earth. It'll burn up in the atmosphere. But we're replacing the junk more quickly than it's falling.

BRAD TUCKER-AFP/GETTY IMAGES IMAGES

Finding a Fix

We've made a mess in space. It's a lot like the mess we've made in the oceans. Think of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. It's a mass of floating junk twice the size of Texas. But we've had centuries to foul the oceans. It has taken just decades for us to do the same in space.

That's why the Science authors include experts in ocean plastic pollution. Heather Koldewey is a marine biologist. She works at the Zoological Society of London. She says cleaning up space has a lot in common "with the challenges of tackling environmental issues in the ocean."

ARNE DEDERT-PICTURE ALLIANCE/GETTY IMAGES

Koldewey and her coauthors see hope for space. They look to the effort to clean up the oceans. In March 2022, 170 countries signed a global plastics treaty at the United Nations. This was an agreement to dump less plastic in the oceans. There could be similar rules for how much debris a launch can create. Old satellites could be taken out of space. And technologies could be developed for cleaning up the rubbish. (See "Trash Collector.")

Coauthor Moriba Jah is an aerospace engineering professor. He works at the University of Texas at Austin. "Marine debris and space debris," he writes, are both a human-made "detriment detriment damage; harm (noun) Nutritionists say eating too much sugar is a detriment to our health. that is avoidable."

Trash Collector

DREW FEUSTEL-JSC

In 2018, scientists on the International Space Station tested the RemoveDebris satellite. In this picture, robotic arms push the device into space. It measures about three feet on each side. It uses a 3D camera. This tracks the location and speed of floating debris. The satellite fires a net to capture the junk. Then the junk falls and burns up in the Earth's atmosphere.

The test was a success. It might have brought the world a step closer to a safer orbit.

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Sixty-six years ago, there was one human-built object in Earth's orbit: Sputnik, the world's first satellite. It was launched in October 1957. Try to guess how many human-made objects are circling the planet now. Ready? The answer is 100 trillion....

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The students had to convince the teacher about the topic they wanted to explore for PBL, and a lot of students decided that they would like to learn more about the solar system.

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What happens to the trash we leave in space, and how can we protect our solar system?