On Nov. 16, seven astronauts on the International Space Station (ISS) woke up to an alarm . A Russian missile (导弹) test had just bombed a satellite into more than 1, 500 pieces of space debris (残骸). Some got very close to the ISS.
NASA says space debris like this can travel at more than 28, 000 km/h. That’s much faster than a bullet (子弹) (about 3, 500 km/h). Even a pea-sized piece of debris could “wipe out” a space station or kill an astronaut if he or she is doing a spacewalk, says Live Science.
Since the 1950s, humans have sent thousands of rockets and satellites into space. Many are still there, and we now face an ever-increasing problem of space rubbish. In 2006, for example, National Geographic reported that a tiny piece of space rubbish hit the ISS, taking a small piece of glass out of a window. In June of this year, a piece of debris ran into one of the station’s robotic arms, which are just like the arms of a robot, and left a hole.
Scientists are trying different ways to deal with the problem. One way is to use a huge net. In 2018, the UK’s Survey Space Center caught some space rubbish with a net in an experiment. It first found the debris, and then collected it with a net and a harpoon (鱼叉).
Another way is to use robotic arms. Clear Space 1, the European Space Agency’s task to clean space rubbish, is going to be sent into space in 2025. It will use robotic arms to catch debris. This plans to throw the debris into Earth’s atmosphere, where it will burn up as it falls because of strong friction (摩擦).
【小题1】The bomb of the Russian missile mainly causes ________ according to the article.| A．plants | B．soil | C．space debris | D．food |
| A．eight times | B．nine times | C．seven times | D．six times |
| A．It gets cleaned. | B．It gets rebuilt. | C．It gets old. | D．It gets broken. |
| A．There is nothing we can do to deal with space debris. |
| B．The astronauts are quite safe in space even there is space debris. |
| C．Thousands of old rockets and satellites are turning into space rubbish for years. |
| D．More and more tasks are failing because we don’t want to cause space rubbish. |
