Space Mission: Indian-origin American astronaut Sunita Williams is currently in space with her colleagues. She has been present in the space station for the last several months. In June, she went to the space center for a week, but now she will return to Earth in February next year. Sunita is currently working on many important studies related to space and she is also the commander of the space station. However, in recent times, the lives of astronauts were in danger twice.

Recently, the danger of the International Space Station (ISS) colliding with the garbage present in space had increased. The garbage was rapidly moving towards the space station, which posed a threat to the lives of Sunita and her companions. This danger has come to the fore not just once but twice. The special thing is that Russia's Progress 89 cargo craft started its engine in time, due to which the space station could be raised to a height and the garbage was saved from colliding with it.

Russia took a big step to get protection from garbage in space

Russia decided to raise the space station to avoid this danger. The Progress 89 cargo craft started its engines for three and a half minutes on Monday (November 25) morning, which brought the space station to a height of 500 meters and saved it from colliding with the garbage. Earlier, a similar attempt was made on November 19 when the space station was raised for 5 minutes to avoid the garbage.

Astronauts' lives are in danger due to collision with garbage 

The amount of garbage in space is extremely dangerous. There are at least 40,500 objects in Earth's orbit that are 4 inches wide. There are also 1.1 million pieces of debris and about 130 million smaller pieces of garbage. These small pieces of garbage are so fast that they can pose a threat to satellites and the International Space Station. A collision with such garbage can put the lives of astronauts at risk.

Measures to protect against space debris 

Many measures are being taken to deal with space waste, but it remains a big challenge. Space agencies like NASA and Russia keep taking measures from time to time to protect the space station from this waste. Sunita and other astronauts are continuously carrying out their tasks in space, but such dangers create a need for even more caution for them.