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Waste in Space: The Quest to Contain Space Debris
This photography-led outreach project by photographer Max Alexander, focusses on the critical issue of space debris, is set in the wider context of sustainability and environmental catastrophe. Waste in Space will visually express - mainly through large scale cityscapes, with superimposed photomosaic space debris images - the real and present threat that space debris poses to society in a unique way: from a human perspective, connecting the Earth to the near-space environment. This everyday approach will make the issues more tangible and real for the public by showing that the debris is just up there.
Mapping the Dangers of the Space Environment
A team led by James Blake, a PhD Student in the Warwick Astronomy and Astrophysics Group, has recently published findings from a survey of the geosynchronous (GSO) region carried out with Isaac Newton Telescope (INT) in La Palma, Canary Islands. The GSO region is a collection of near-circular orbits located roughly 36,000 kilometres above the Equator, where satellites match the period of the Earth’s rotation. This unique property allows for GSO satellites to remain near-fixed in an observer’s sky, making them incredibly useful for telecommunications, navigation and weather monitoring.
Mapping the Media History of Planetary Consciousness
An upcoming book by Tiago de Luca from the Department of Film and Television re-examines the story of our planet. The familiar story is that late 1960s humanity finally saw photographic evidence of the Earth in space for the first time, and the impact of such images in the formation of a planetary consciousness is yet to be matched. However, in Planetary Cinema: Film, Media and the Earth de Luca argues that this narrative has failed to account for the vertiginous global imagination underpinning the media and film culture of the late nineteenth century and beyond. It proposes that an exploration media culture can help us understand contemporary planetary imaginaries in times of environmental collapse and the way we currently see the world.