Vishnu Reddy, UArizona planetary sciences professor and Space4 director, took on the challenge of studying highly volatile and highly reflective Earth-orbiting blobs of sodium potassium, or NaK, when he joined the University in 2016. Photo by John de Dios.
Graduate students and faculty associated with the University of Arizona’s Space4 Center are using nuclear coolant waste to fill a critical gap in space situational awareness and improve safety for future space missions.
Their research focuses on small bits of space junk that are difficult to see but large enough to damage spacecraft—objects with a diameter of 1 to 10 cm, dime- to grapefruit size, whizzing around in low-earth orbit, or LEO. LEO is home to the International Space Station, the Hubble Space Telescope and megaconstellations like the internet provider Starlink.
Using highly volatile and highly reflective blobs of sodium potassium, or NaK, that are orbiting Earth, the team has demonstrated the ability to track and study small, shiny objects with a small, student-built telescope—a first in the space situational awareness community.