Space Junk....

Hubby and I like to sit outside on Friday and Saturday nights. We have nice fire pit built in to our back patio. Its nice to relax and reflect after the kids go to bed and enjoy watching the flames dance. Once thing I love to do is watch the night sky. It simply amazes me. While I do not have a telescope, I use binoculars to catch a glimpse of anything celestial. And I admit, I do not know one constellation from the other, they all look the same to me. I do keep hoping that maybe this Christmas Santa will bring a really nice telescope, one that I can plug in to the computer and download info.

Friday night while hanging out on the back patio, I noticed high level lights streaking across the sky. No, it was not meteors; these were small and fast like they were on a course for somewhere. Then we assumed it was the International Space Station. We do see it quite a bit where we live. But it kept happening.

Then Hubby suggested “Space Junk” which got me thinking: Just how cluttered is space?

I remember when the Shuttle was once hit in the windshield by junk, and a few weeks back I was outside and saw a bright flame shoot from the sky then died out, could that have been a piece of trash falling to earth?

So then I researched it, and apparently space is just as trashed as I expected it to be, from old satellites, to things astronauts have left floating. No wonder we are on a constant barrage from trash falling to earth.  So next time you are outside on a dark and starry night, watch the night sky, and you too might see a piece of space junk go zooming by.