An Etymological Dictionary of Astronomy and Astrophysics
English-French-Persian

The remains of anything broken down or destroyed; rubble; ruins.
Astro.: → debris disk; → orbital debris.
Geology: An accumulation of loose fragments of rock.

From Fr. débris, from M.Fr. débriser "break down, crush," from O.Fr. debrisier, → de- + brisier "to break," from L.L. brisare.

Tifâl, from tif "rubbish, sweepings, debris" + -al relation suffix → -al.

A disk developing around a star after the dissipation of the → protoplanetary disk of gas and dust whose material was used in the formation of planets during the first 10 million years. The resulting debris disk is mainly composed of residual → planetesimals analogous to → asteroids, → comets, and → Kuiper Belt Objects in the Solar System. Their mutual collisions produce observable → dust emission in a belt encompassing the planetary system.

→ debris; → disk.

Objects in orbit around Earth created by humans, that no longer serve any useful purpose. They consist of everything from entire spent rocket stages and defunct satellites to explosion fragments, paint flakes, dust, and slag from solid rocket motors, and other small particles. Also called space junk and space waste.

→ orbital; → debris .

Man-made objects in orbit around the Earth that no longer serve any useful purpose. The estimated number of debris include about 22,000 tractable objects larger than 10 cm in all orbits, of which 2,200 are dead satellites and last stages of the rocket that put them in orbit. There are also left-overs from spacecraft and mission operations, such as bolts, lens caps, clamp bands, auxiliary motors, etc. The debris presents a threat because of their high speeds, which ranges between 15 and 20 km/sec. Also called space junk, space waste, orbital debris.

→ space; → debris.