WASHINGTON — Giant chunks of manmade space junk regularly fall to Earth. Yet no one has ever been reported hurt by them.
Chunks of debris weighing 2 tons or more from satellites and rockets fall uncontrolled every three weeks or so, according to an analysis by Jonathan McDowell, a Harvard University astronomer who tracks satellites and space debris.
It’s likely that 50 to 200 “large” pieces of space junk return to Earth every year, according to the Center for Orbital and Re-entry Debris Studies.
Bill Ailor, the center’s director, like those at NASA’s Johnson Space Center, said he was asked by the government not to comment specifically on the current satellite re-entry issue.
In the past 40 years, about 12 million pounds of manmade space junk has survived re-entering Earth’s atmosphere, according to the center.
Experts know of only one person being hit by space debris. Lottie Williams of Tulsa, Okla., was struck on the shoulder in 1997 by a small piece of debris from a discarded piece of a Delta rocket. She was unhurt.
The reason space junk doesn’t regularly hit people is simple: About 70 percent of Earth’s surface is water. And on average, there are about 130 people per square mile of land on Earth, but they don’t take up a lot of space. So the orbital-debris center that studies the issue puts the odds of anyone being hurt by any piece of re-entering space junk at one in a trillion, saying you are far more likely to get hit by lightning.
