This article was originally posted on Northeastern Global News by Cody Mello-Klein.
Year after year, humanity is setting new records for the amount of stuff we’re sending into the Earth’s orbit, spurred mostly by Starlink’s orbital domination. We’re getting more eyes (satellites) on the sky, but we’re also creating an increasing amount of space junk that has scientists on edge.
Space junk is anything that humanity has put into low Earth orbit that hasn’t either fallen back to the planet or spun out into space –– and there’s a lot of it.
Anncy Thresher, an assistant professor of public policy and philosophy at Northeastern University who specializes in space policy, says “99% of the stuff we’ve launched from Earth is sitting up there.” As commercial space launches led by Starlink and other private companies have become more common, the amount of stuff sitting in space has increased exponentially.
“We’re just getting more stuff up there and that increases the chances that junk is going to do something problematic,” Thresher says.
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