What is

What is Ocean Garbage Patch?

It is a large system of ocean surface current moving in a circular fashion driven by winds movement of marine debris particles. These collections of plastic and other debris, waste are not compact, most of it is near the surface of the ocean and it can be found up to more than 30 metres deep in the water (ocean). Garbage patch grow because of widespread loss of plastic from trash collection system. Patches contains micro-plastics, plastic pellet, goods appliances lost from shipping, flood etc.

What are the sources of Garbage Patch?

· Tons of plastic wastes moves from roads areas into storm drains during heavy rain and wind in coastal cities which washes into the Ocean. These storm drains and rivers act like a well design conveyor belt system for the movement of tons of trash from cities area to coast every-year during rainy days.

· Near the coastal areas people leave plastic bags, bottles, trash cans on the sand where winds and tides pull them away to the sea.

· Cargo ships and Ocean Liners throw waste overboard. Sometime storms knock off the container from a cargo ship.

· Fishing activities are one of the main causes of garbage patch in ocean. Fishing industries consists of huge ships along-with huge ropes, traps which abandon them in the ocean. These things are made up non corrosive material. It floats and moves along-with the ocean current.

Impact of Garbage Patch

Ø     On Ocean Life

· Aquatic animals like turtles, fish and sea birds by mistake eat away these brightly coloured plastic as food which negatively affect on their digestive system.

· Whales, Sharks etc get traps on the abandon nets. Injuring and drowning them.

· Plastic release chemical Toxins into the ocean water and leach chemical additives into marine organisms when eaten.

Ø     On Ecosystem

· Plastics on the ocean surface when exposed to sunlight slowly degrade and release methane and ethylene into the atmosphere which are Greenhouse gases.

· Marine organism get interfere with micro-plastics reduces the oceans capacity to absorb carbon dioxide.

· Floating debris acts as carrying non-native and invasive coastal organism into open ocean habitats where they disrupt natural balances.

Five Major Ocean Garbage patch

1.Great pacific garbage patch: It is the largest garbage patch of all. Located in between Hawaii and California in North Pacific

2. South pacific garbage patch: Located off the Western Coast of South America.

3. North Atlantic garbage patch: Located between North America and Africa.

4.South Atlantic garbage patch: Located between South America and South Africa.

5. Indian Ocean garbage patch: Located in the waters of the Indian Ocean east of South Africa.

Why Patch Clean-Up is so hard?

· The rate of removal of trash by the ships is slow than that of arrival of new trash i.e plastic waste continuously flows from the river to the ocean.

· Micro-plastic are scattered over a large area make it impossible to scoop up all at a once.

·  The garbage collecting nets or tools can harm ocean organism lives right at the surface.

· These garbage patches are located at remote region which requires huge ship and funding.

How can clean or prevent Garbage patch

A simple and more effective solution is that prevent new waste from entering the ocean and active the offshore cleaning up.

· River barriers and interceptors should be installed to scoop out debris from polluting rivers before opening into the ocean.

· Implementing strict Government policy and regulation for the improvement of waste management structure.

· By choosing reusable bags, bottles, cups etc

· Recovering abandon commercial wastes from the cargo ships and fishing coumminity.

Few major Organization working for clean up Oceanic garbage patches

1.  The Ocean Cleanup

2.  4ocean

3. Ocean Conservancy

4. The Great Bubble Barrier

The ocean garbage patch is a serious environmental problem cause mainly by the accumulation of plastic and other waste in ocean current. Its harms marine animals, damages ecosystem, and can eventually effects human and coastal communities. Although the garbage patches are difficult to clean completely, we can reduce the problem by using less plastic, recycling properly, preventing waste from entering rivers and oceans, and supporting effective waste management system. Protecting our ocean is everyone’s responsibility, and preventing pollution is the most effective way to keep the ocean clean for future generations.

 Today it is only thanks to human civilization that 2.12 billion tons of waste is dumped every year around the world. Our Earth is carrying the burden of about 7 billion tons of waste in such a situation. When there is talk of bringing life to Mars, Moon or Outer planet.

What guarantee is there that humans will not go there and spread waste?

But today this matter has gone far beyond just a theory. Humans have crossed the limit of spreading waste on another world. Practically speaking, if we think about going into space, then you will not be able to escape human waste there either.

Is there waste in space too? How does this waste get there?

We must know how debris is created in space?

So every day you see in the news and also hear, friends, that this country launched so many satellites. Now, to install these satellites, the rocket is separated from the spacecraft at different stages at multiple levels. Now, during this entire process, leftover materials, hardware from various space missions, and other such things accumulate as debris in space. Now, the most frightening thing about this is that this debris continuously collects around the Earth and circles at a speed of 25,000 km per hour, and even then, 70% of it is in low orbit, meaning it is moving in the atmosphere closest to Earth. It comes at an altitude of 150 km to 2,000 kilometers from the Earth.

If this space junk is moving in our atmosphere, how much harm will it cause us?

The layer of the atmosphere in which this junk is moving is very important in many ways. For weather forecasting and surveillance satellites, Hubble Telescope-like science missions, and the International Space Station. Debris keeps moving continuously, and it moves so fast that the pieces in it collide with each other and after colliding with one another, they break into hundreds and thousands of pieces. Most of these metal pieces are very dangerous for satellites as well as astronauts. For example, a piece about the size of a grain of rice can make a hole in a human space suit, and if that happens, the pressure inside the suit will immediately decrease and the astronaut will die.

     The beginning of sending things into space took place on October 4, 1957. On this day, the Soviet Union launched the world's first artificial satellite Sputnik 1on R7 Semyorka rocket. The R7 rocket was an intercontinental ballistic missile that could deliver nuclear weapons to any corner of the world. This was the era of the Cold War. It was a small metal ball, about the size of a ball, and radio transmitters were mounted on it. But three months after being released into space, it fell back to Earth, entered the atmosphere, and completely burned up. Sputnik was gone, and as it departed, it marked the beginning of the race for space domination between the two superpowers of the time, America and the Soviet Union. Now, although Sputnik was the first thing to go into space, no debris was created in space from its pieces. The beginning of space debris started after 1961. This was the same year when a man named Yuri

Gagarin was sent into space. He too was a citizen of the Soviet Union.

That means the first satellite and the first human to be sent into space were both with the USSR.

    According to the European Space Agency, since then until today, more than 7000 approx launches have taken place. Due to which at present there are more than 50,000 approx objects in space and out of these, 28,000 approx are still moving there. There are currently only 4,000 such satellites that are working properly. These figures show that in 1970 there were around 2,000 objects in space, which have now increased to more than 10 times that number. At the same time, there are 900,000 objects larger than one centimetre are currently moving in space. That means the danger is continuously increasing.

If we take a sensational look at space, the biggest contribution to increasing space debris has come from the decade after 2010.

    Yes, as many rockets, transmitters, antennas, and receivers were sent into space during this period, more than were sent in the previous five decades combined. The situation from here is becoming even more frightening because many private companies have also jumped into the space race and are now not ready to turn back. Thousands more satellites may be sent in the coming years.

 In such a situation, experts estimate that by the year 2030, there will be 100,000 commercial satellites in space. Now, with such a large number of satellites in space and so many objects in Earth's orbit. The possibility of them colliding with each other increases considerably. It is not that there have never been any accidents because of these objects. Because of this debris, some dangerous collisions have already occurred in space.

                The most terrible collision so far happened in 2009, when a Russian military satellite, Cosmos 2251, collided with an American communication satellite, Iridium 33. This took place 789 kilometers above the Earth surface over Siberia.  In this collision both satellites were completely shattered. It is said that the collision created around 2,300 pieces. Many of these later returned to the Earth's atmosphere and burned up, but the worrying thing here is that some of these pieces reached 1,000 kilometers above Earth. Now they will continue moving in the same orbit for many years, and the risk of their colliding with other satellites will also remain.

              A similar incident happened with a satellite of the European Space Agency in 2016. One of the satellite's solar panels developed a malfunction.

Later it was discovered that a one-millimeter piece of space junk had hit its panel. This was the reason for the accident. Therefore, it appears that even a small collision can produce debris 100 times larger than the original object. When the sending of things into space had just begun, friends, at that time debris was created either when satellites broke apart or from additional hardware deliberately discarded during launches.

            In 1986, several European countries together with France launched the rocket Orion 1. Its second-stage rocket suddenly exploded. This collision created the largest debris field in space up to that time, and it produced around 492 pieces. Yes, 32 of these are still moving in orbit. A similar blast was observed by an astrophysicist in 1978. After this, this type of event was called the Kessler Syndrome. He said that if collisions continue happening in space like this, an enormous amount of debris will accumulate there. The pieces will collide with one another and create even more pieces. The situation will become such that the atmosphere closest to Earth will be filled with pieces.

One day, a time will come when no spacecraft will be able to leave Earth's orbit.

Looking at the rate at which launches are taking place, it seems that this situation may arrive soon.

Should scientists find some other solution for dealing with this problem, or should this race for space be stopped for now?

        There was a very large explosion on the Moon. It created a crater that’s about 100 feet deep in the Moon’s surface. But it’s already happened. SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket crashed into the surface of the Moon. After that, a hole was formed. After several very loud explosions, there was also a cloud of dust. It was seen flying through the sky, and this could only be observed through telescopes. It wasn’t possible to see it with the naked eye.

SpaceX, Elon Musk’s company, is capable of transporting objects weighing up to 4000 kilograms. A piece of the 4-ton rocket crashed directly into the Moon’s surface. This wasn’t part of any planned mission; it was an accident.

 The part of the rocket that remained in space had been orbiting there for the past 18 months. It was orbiting around the moon, and eventually, it came within the range of the moon’s gravitational force. Then, it collided with the moon.

In the end, the moon’s Gravity pulled it toward itself, and it collided with the Moon at extremely high speed. It collided with the Moon at a terrifying speed of 2.5 kilometers per second. Just imagine: if it had collided with the Moon at that speed, what a huge explosion must have occurred, and what kind of devastation it would have caused. It is said that the impact of the explosion was equivalent to that of a bomb weighing around 3000 kilograms. In other words, it was roughly 3000 kilograms in weight. When such a massive iron structure collided with the moon at such a terrifying speed, the entire surface of the moon was shaken by the impact. Scientists believe that due to this powerful explosion, the moon’s surface was altered by approximately 20 to 30 meters, which is equivalent to the height of an 8- to 10-story building.

It’s become a hole now. A deep hole has been formed. A great deal of soil and dust was thrown into the air, rising several kilometers high. In other words, right after the impact occurred, a large amount of cloud of dust stretching for kilometers could be seen rising into the air. The impact occurred near the Moon’s terminator line. That’s the part of the Moon where the illuminated part of the Moon meets the dark part.

The telescopes at the Paranal Observatory recorded this event. Scientists observed that dust and gas clouds persisted for approximately 5 to 10 minutes after the collision. Scientists studied this nebula. They said that telescopes detected signs of sodium and lithium gases within this nebula. It is said that when it collided or came into contact with something else, the lithium and sodium contained within it released gas particles. Scientists believe that these objects appeared to be flying in the sky. By studying these signals, scientists are trying to understand more about them.

You see, this was an astronomical event—a collision of this kind.

Although it was not a planned collision. It was simply a piece of the rocket that was still orbiting in space after the mission was completed. That’s what caused the collision.

The Falcon 9 rocket was launched in January 2025 on behalf of Firefly Aerospace to reach the Moon. The lander was sent toward the Moon. After the mission was completed, this part of the rocket continued to orbit in space. Scientists had already predicted that its trajectory would eventually lead to a collision with the Moon. And indeed, that’s exactly what happened. It collided with the Moon.

Scientists have recorded all of these things using telescopes. Now, research is being conducted to determine what kinds of gases are produced when something like this hits the Moon. Do elements get released during this process? What kind of explosion would occur? This is also being studied to determine whether this phenomenon will indeed happen in the future.

What if, in the future, some asteroid or comet similar to this to collide with Earth, or with some other planet?

What might be the impact if it does collide?

It was an event that will be forever recorded in the history of space exploration.

            The Northern Lights, also known as the Aurora Borealis, are a natural light display that occurs in the Polar Regions, primarily in the Arctic and Antarctic. They are caused by the interaction between the Earth's magnetic field and charged particles from the sun, which are funnelled towards the poles. When these particles collide with gases in the Earth's atmosphere, such as oxygen and nitrogen, they release energy in the form of light. This creates the beautiful, colourful displays in the night sky, often seen in green, pink, purple, and red hues.

    The Northern Lights are most commonly visible in areas close to the magnetic pole, like northern Canada, Alaska, Scandinavia, and Russia. They're a stunning natural phenomenon! Have you ever seen them, or do you want to catch a glimpse someday?

    The Northern Lights (Aurora Borealis) happen when solar wind, which is a stream of charged particles released from the sun, reaches the Earth. These particles are made up of electrons and protons. When they collide with the gases in the Earth's atmosphere, such as oxygen and nitrogen, they excite these gas molecules, causing them to release photons of light. The colour of the light depends on the type of gas and its altitude:

• Green: This is the most common colour and is produced by oxygen molecules located about 60 to 150 miles above the Earth’s surface.
• Red: This colour appears at higher altitudes, typically above 150 miles, and is caused by oxygen molecules as well, but at much higher altitudes.
• Purple, blue, and pink: These are produced by nitrogen molecules, usually at lower altitudes.

The display typically happens in an oval-shaped region around the magnetic poles, known as the aurora oval. The phenomenon is stronger during solar maximum years when the sun is at the peak of its 11-year solar cycle, and solar activity is heightened.

The best places to witness the Northern Lights are in regions close to the magnetic poles, especially in winter when the nights are longest. Some of the best countries to catch the Northern Lights include:

• Norway (Tromsø, Lofoten Islands)
• Sweden (Abisko National Park)
• Finland (Rovaniemi)
• Iceland
• Canada (Yukon, Northwest Territories)
• Alaska (Fairbanks)

The auroras don’t happen every night, and their intensity can vary. Solar activity, the weather, and light pollution all play a role in how visible the lights are.

* Data collected from Net