Astronauts working aboard the International Space Station will stay
overnight in the Russian segment of the station and will be able to
return to the US segment only by noon on Thursday, the director of
NASA’s manned space flights programs in Russia, Sean Fuller told TASS on
Wednesday.
Earlier reports indicated a possibility of foreign astronauts’ return
to the US segment of the station as early as Wednesday night.
Kerry Nock of Global Aerospace Corporation stated that the problem of
space debris is becoming increasingly more acute every year. He said
that recently one of our orbiting satellites was put out of order, and
may happen again. He suggested that once nothing can be done about the
debris, we should at least try to reduce its amount by removing broken
equipment from the orbit.
Now debris mean mainly fragments of
various satellites that no longer serve any useful purpose, but may
damage the operating units, and in some cases threaten nuclear or toxic
contamination when they fall on Earth.
According to the report
published in October of 2009 by the UN Office for Outer Space Affairs,
approximately 300,000 such objects revolve around our planet.
It's an asteroid, it's called 2012 DA14, it was only discovered last
year, it is going to pass by Earth on Friday of next week (February 15)
and it is going to set a record for a close miss of a space object. This
monster is approaching at 4.8 miles per second. However, there is good
news. It isn't going to hit... so they say.
The Russian Federal Space Agency (Federal'noe Kosmicheskoe Agentsvo)
confirms that the object will fly near the Earth on February 16 MSK
time, between approximately twenty to twenty-five miles from our planet
(nearest point 17,200 miles). This is lower than some geostationary
satellites and even closer than the upcoming near-impact with the
Doomsday Asteroid, Apophis, scheduled for 2029.