SCIENCE NEWS: LUNAR LITTER BUGS LOITER

With scores of moon shots projected over the next decade, there's a risk parts of the lunar surface will be littered by scrapyards of aged landers and crashed orbiters.

Quoted by London's Daliy Star, Professor Ian Crawford of Birkbeck, University of London, believes that "the more lunar satellites there are, the greater the chance that some may crash into scientifically or culturally sensitive locations.”
   
As our photo illustrates, scrap is already available for all comers, including NASA's Surveyor 3, which touch down - a bit tilted - in April 1967. It was photographed two years later by Apollo 12 astronauts who removed components and returned them to Earth.

That said, “it’s not an immediate concern," said Fionagh Thomson, senior research fellow at Durham University, also quoted by the Daily Star.

[Photo: NASA]