This week on The Children’s Hour, learn about space junk with space anthropologist Dr. Alice Gorman. We’ll explore the consequences of polluting our upper stratosphere, and what the plan is to pick up our trash in orbit. This space junk podcast for kids comes with a learning guide and activities to learn even more. 

This episode comes with a free Learning Guide.

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When people send satellites, rockets, and spacecraft into orbit around planet Earth, millions of pieces of junk and trash get left behind, or break off. These tiny pieces become space junk, and it’s a problem for other satellites as these bits of trash start an orbit that is so fast, it can damage other satellites, rockets, and even astronauts. 

Our guest on this episode is an Australian space anthropologist, Dr. Alice Gorman. She’s been studying the effects of space junk on our atmosphere, and on other satellites. She explains the Kessler phenomenon, which is when one piece of junk hits something in space, and both items fracture into millions of pieces of more space junk.  

Space junk is definitely a problem, and there is no easy solution. In fact currently there has been no solution that works to clean up space. 

But it’s not just space! When rockets launch into space, they leave debris as part of the launch. Or when satellites die, they can fall back to earth. In these cases the space junk stays on Earth and doesn’t end up in orbit. We learn about the space cemetery in the deepest part of the ocean, which will one day become the new home of the International Space Station.

This episode of The Children’s Hour was written and produced by our senior intern, Thaniel Lentz, executive producer Katie Stone, and writer McKenzie Graunke, with production support from Andrew Wyrill, our intern Isaac Lacerda, and producer Sarah Gabrielli. 

The Children’s Hour is distributed by Native Voice One: The Native American Radio Network.

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