Clearing Out Space Debris

The current powerful solar storm hitting Earth is creating spectacular aurorae and messing with non-hardened electronics, but it could also help out with the space debris problem in low Earth orbit.

Huge storms on the surface of the Sun are currently flinging bursts of energy at Earth. That energy heats the atmosphere, causing it to expand. As the atmosphere reaches farther out into space, it applies more friction to objects in low Earth orbit. Friction slows objects, giving gravity an assist in bringing the objects back to Earth.

Of course, the effect is small, and thus will affect only small objects. Still, NASA estimates that perhaps half a million objects could fall out of orbit and burn up in the atmosphere. At orbital speed, each of those tiny pieces would act like a bullet fired from a high-powered rifle if it hit a spacecraft, so the fact that many of them will be gone is no small thing.