Sometimes you’d rather not know the bad news. An estimated 500, 000 pieces of space junk—old satellites, rocket parts, debris fr

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问题    Sometimes you’d rather not know the bad news. An estimated 500, 000 pieces of space junk—old satellites, rocket parts, debris from collisions—swarm in orbit around Earth. Much of it is potentially deadly: NASA officials say anything larger than 1 centimeter in diameter poses a threat to the International Space Station (ISS) . But current tracking systems can generally only watch objects 10 cm or larger, and the U. S. government now follows less than 5% of space hazards—just 23, 000 objects. That should change with the addition of a powerful new Air Force radar system, scheduled to break ground this month on Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands.
   When it comes online in 2019, Space Fence is expected to find and track as many as 150, 000 additional humanmade objects, some as small as a golf ball, says Dana Whalley, Space Fence program manager, who is stationed at Hanscom Air Force Base in Massachusetts. In addition to enabling the Air Force to better protect Defense Department satellites from collisions, the new system will improve the military’s ability to observe and track foreign satellite activity, especially in the busy Asia-Pacific region.

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答案 有时候你宁愿自己不知道这个坏消息。据估计,充斥于地球附近轨道上的太空垃圾有500 000件,包括废旧卫星、火箭部件和碰撞残骸,其中大部分具有潜在的危险性。美国国家航空航天局的官员表示,任何直径大于1厘米的物体都会对国际空间站构成威胁。而现有的追踪系统通常只能观测到直径10厘米及以上的物体,美国政府目前监控的太空垃圾只有23 000件,不足总量的5%。不过,美国空军一套强大的新雷达系统将改变这一现状。该系统将于本月在马绍尔群岛的夸贾林环礁启动研制。 驻扎在马萨诸塞州汉斯科姆空军基地的“太空篱笆”项目负责人达纳-惠利介绍说,2019年上线时,“太空篱笆”有望发现并追踪另外多达150 000件人造垃圾,其中一些仅有高尔夫球般大小。除了能让美国空军更好地保护军用卫星免遭撞击,新系统还将提高军方观察和追踪外国卫星活动的能力,尤其是在繁忙的亚太地区。

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