The ISS Got a Little Ding in Its Windshield
You're rolling down the road and then THWACK-you hear it. The unmistakeable sound of a pebble bouncing off your windshield, leaving a ding that could result in a crack that could result in you having to replace the piece of glass.
If you thinks that's scary, imagine it happening in space.
Earth orbit is a dangerous place, with natural debris, shards of satellite collisions, and other space junk zipping around the planet and occasionally sending the astronauts aboard the International Space Station to duck and cover. And sometimes the station gets hit. Case in point: This photo by astronaut Tim Peake captures a chip 7 millimeters in diameter taken out of a fused-silica and borosilicate-glass window in the ISS's Cupola module. A metal fragment probably no bigger than a thousandth of a millimeter did the deed. You needn't be big to be troublesome.
"I am often asked if the International Space Station is hit by space debris. Yes – this is the chip in one of our Cupola windows, glad it is quadruple glazed!" Peake says in the press release about the image.
This tiny speck posed no danger to the crew, but the European Space Agency says a larger piece-say, a centimeter across-could do enough damage to disable systems. Beware space junk.
