2.
阅读理解
Many
people know that rubbish is a big problem on planet Earth. What many people
don't know is that junk (垃圾) has become a problem in outer space too.
According to BBC News, there are more than 22,000 pieces of space junk
floating around the Earth. And these are just the things that we can see
from the surface of the Earth by telescopes (望远镜). There are also millions of smaller
pieces of junk that we can't see.
Objects, like bits of old space rockets or satellites, move around the
planet at very high speed, so fast that even a very small piece can break
important satellites or become dangerous to astronauts. If the tiniest piece of
junk crashed into a spaceship, it could damage the vehicle.
To
make things worse, when two objects in space crash, they break into many
smaller pieces. For example, when an American satellite hit an old Russian
rocket in 2009, it broke into more than 2,000 pieces, increasing the amount of
space junk.
To
reduce additional space junk, countries have agreed that all new space tools
can only stay in space for 25 years at most. Each tool must be built to fall
safely into the Earth's atmosphere after that time. In the upper parts of the
atmosphere, it will burn up.
Many
scientists are also suggesting different ways to clean up space junk. In
England scientists are testing a metal net that can be fired into space junk.
The net catches the junk and then pulls it into the Earth's atmosphere to burn
up. The Germans are building robots that can collect pieces of space junk and
bring them back to the Earth to be safely destroyed.
"The
problem is becoming more challenging because we're sending more objects into
space to help people use their mobile phones and computers," says Marco
Castronuovo, an Italian space researcher.
"The
time to act is now. The longer we leave the problem, the bigger it will become,"
he says.