{"id":130766,"date":"2023-07-26T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-07-26T15:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/?p=130766"},"modified":"2023-07-25T18:05:32","modified_gmt":"2023-07-25T23:05:32","slug":"what-goes-up-must-come-down-we-must-contend-with-space-debris","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/what-goes-up-must-come-down-we-must-contend-with-space-debris\/","title":{"rendered":"What Goes Up Must Come Down: We Must Contend with Space Debris"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

University of Mississippi law expert says mysterious object found on Australian coast won’t be the last space junk to fall<\/em><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

A\u00a0metal object recently found on the coast of Western Australia<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0made international news before it was identified as likely part of a rocket, but\u00a0University of Mississippi<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0law professor Michelle Hanlon<\/strong> said this object \u2013 and others like it \u2013 are only the beginning of our reckoning with deorbiting space debris.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With the onslaught of companies and countries launching satellites and rockets into outer space, governments must contend with the prospect of falling space debris hitting property or people, said Hanlon, director of the UM\u00a0Center for Air and Space Law<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0and co-founder and president of\u00a0For All Moonkind Inc.<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“This piece \u2013 it’s been identified as space junk \u2013 is the beginning of a new deluge,” she said. “The number of objects in orbit around our planet is growing every day. We’ve got to get used to seeing more and more stuff like this.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two international laws,\u00a0Article 7 of the Outer Space Treaty<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0and the\u00a0Convention on International Liability for Damage Caused by Space Objects<\/strong><\/a>, dictate how governments handle the deorbiting of space junk and the liability of damage caused by falling spaceborne objects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“What both of these laws say is if you have a space object and it does any harm to any person on Earth, you are absolutely liable,” Hanlon said. “If you do damage on Earth, you are liable. Period.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The object found last week, however, has no clear markings indicating its country of origin, complicating the issue, she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“We got really lucky with this one because it landed in the ocean,” Hanlon said. “It could have landed on somebody’s house. What we’re seeing today with this object is we don’t know who’s responsible for that object or who would be liable if that object caused damage. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Unless you see a flag right on it, who decides who pays? This is not an unusual occurrence; it’s more unusual that we aren’t able to identify it.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most falling space debris that will not disintegrate upon reentry is directed to\u00a0Point Nemo<\/strong><\/a>, a point in the Pacific Ocean<\/strong> farthest from land and\u00a0where the closest human beings are in the International Space Station<\/strong><\/a>, Hanlon said. Some countries, such as China<\/strong>, make no effort to redirect falling space debris, which can lead to dangerous objects deorbiting and crashing to Earth<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While redirecting the debris to this spot may lower the likelihood of danger to life or property, there is little study into the ecological impact of this space junk dump site, Hanlon said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“What effect do these things have on marine life?” she said. “As the amount of orbital debris continues to grow, that’s something we have to contend with, both in terms of our orbital environment and our environment on Earth.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Clara Turnage<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a>
Michelle Hanlon. Photo by Kevin Bain\/Ole Miss Digital Imaging Services<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

University of Mississippi law expert says mysterious object found on Australian coast won’t be the last space junk<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":123462,"featured_media":130767,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17687],"tags":[25722,25429,26136,8962,26134,9344,16646,5,7067,26135,4,655],"class_list":["post-130766","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-university-of-mississippi","tag-center-for-air-and-space-law","tag-china","tag-convention-on-international-liability-for-damage-caused-by-space-objects","tag-earth","tag-for-all-moonkind-inc","tag-international-space-station","tag-michelle-hanlon","tag-mississippi","tag-ole-miss","tag-outer-space-treaty","tag-oxford","tag-university-of-mississippi"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/spacejunk-o-750.jpg?fit=750%2C422&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130766","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/123462"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=130766"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130766\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/130767"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=130766"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=130766"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=130766"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}