International Space Station (ISS) inhabitant Samantha Cristoforetti has been speaking in regards to the risk that area particles poses to the orbital outpost.

With the ISS orbiting Earth at greater than 17,000 mph, and with loads of area junk doing the exact same factor, there’s definitely a danger of a Gravity-style calamity occurring, although luckily in the course of the station’s 20-year historical past a severe occasion has but to happen.

In a video shared along with her half 1,000,000 TikTok followers and a million Twitter followers, Italian astronaut Cristoforetti defined this week that a lot of the outside of the station is roofed with panels that function shields defending the ISS from micrometeorites and tiny items of area particles, whereas the remainder of it includes super-strong fused-silica and borosilicate-glass home windows.

“Is the International Space Station protected from micrometeorites and space debris?” #AskMe #SpaceParticles #MissionMinerva@esa @esaspaceflight @Space_Station pic.twitter.com/boHmUxH2DI

— Samantha Cristoforetti (@AstroSamantha) September 8, 2022

Cristoforetti, who arrived on the area station in April for a six-month keep, stated that if a tiny object did breach the ISS’s defenses, it might doubtless trigger a leak, leading to air flowing from the station into area. The lack of strain may occur so slowly that the astronauts wouldn’t even notice at first. That’s why the station features a Rapid Depressurization Emergency Alarm.

Detecting a doubtlessly harmful drop in strain, the alarm would alert the crew to the state of affairs. Investigating astronauts can then use totally different instruments to attempt to find the leak earlier than fixing it.

“If that doesn’t work — maybe because the leak is very small and so the air flow is very weak — we start closing the hatches, module by module,” Cristoforetti explains within the video. “Once a hatch is closed, you can check the pressure using a portable pressure gauge. If the pressure stabilizes it means that you have determined that the leak was on the other side of the [closed] hatch.”

Such an incident occurred in 2020 when astronauts had hassle discovering the supply of a small leak on the station. After looking for greater than a month, the leak was found inside Russia’s Zvezda service module.

While Cristoforetti talks primarily about tiny fragments floating by way of area, there are additionally some fairly giant items of area particles orbiting Earth, too. These outdated rocket components or decommissioned satellites pose a a lot higher danger to the ISS. Fortunately, there are groups on the bottom monitoring such hazards, and if a bit is detected heading towards the station, it’s directed to boost or decrease its orbit to keep away from a doubtlessly disastrous collision.

Occasionally, nevertheless, there’s little time to take evasive motion. Just final yr, for instance, ISS astronauts had been ordered to take shelter contained in the station’s docked spacecraft as a cloud of junk got here perilously shut. On that event the ISS escaped harm, however the occasion was a reminder of the form of dangers astronauts take when touring in area.

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