Recently, a piece of debris struck the Chinese crewed vehicle Shenzhou-20, caused a minor crack in the window of its return capsule which raised the concerns regarding protections of astronauts from Micrometeoroids and Orbital Debris (MMOD) that orbit the earth.
About Micrometeoroids:
Micrometeoroids are typically extremely small, with sizes ranging from a few micrometres (a millionth of a meter) to up to about two millimetres.
Origin: Most of them originate from collisions between asteroids in the Asteroid belt (between Mars and Jupiter) with a small portion coming from comets.
Speed: They travel at extremely high velocities.
Distribution: They exist everywhere in space, but due to the Earth’s gravity pull their distribution is slightly higher near our planet.
The micrometeoroids in Earth’s orbital environment are effectively uncountable and they deliver billions of impacts to orbiting space crafts annually.
About Orbital debris:
They are also called space debris, space junk or space trash.
They consist of human-made objects in the Earth’s orbit which no longer serves any useful purpose.
Origin: All orbital debris originated primarily from exploded rocket stages, satellites, accidental collisions and intentional anti-satellite weapon tests.
The typical average speed of orbital debris is about 10 km/s.
Orbital debris is mostly concentrated in a “shell” around the Earth in Low earth Orbit (LEO) ranging from about 200 km up to 2,000 km altitude.
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