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“Astronomers – and casual viewers of the night sky – must expect a future in which the low Earth orbit population includes tens of thousands of relatively large satellites,” Jonathan McDowell at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics warned in a 2020 study. “The impacts will be significant for certain types of observation, certain observatories and at certain times of year.”
Until a couple years ago, humanity had launched fewer than 10,000 objects into orbit since the start of the Space Age. However, with the advent of low-cost commercial rocket launch technology which has seen the price per pound of launching cargo fall from $24,800 during the Shuttle era to just $1,240 today the rate at which we put satellites into orbit is set to increase exponentially.
Mission to clean up space junk with magnets set for launch
It’s invisible in the night sky, but above us there is a cloud of more than 9,000 tons of space junk equivalent to the weight of 720 school buses.
This debris is composed of parts of old satellites as well as entire defunct satellites and rocket bodies. The debris poses risks to the International Space Station and threatens things we take for granted on Earth weather forecasting, GPS and telecommunications. It’s a problem that’s getting worse with more and more satellites being launched each year by ventures like Elon Musk’s SpaceX.
Mission to clean up space junk with magnets set for launch wishtv.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from wishtv.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.