THE SPACE JUNK PROBLEM IS ABOUT TO GET A WHOLE LOT GNARLIERSARAH SCOLES SCIENCE 07.31.1710:00 AM
https://www.wired.com/story/the-space-junk-problem-is-about-to-get-a-whole-lot-gnarlier/
NASA/JSC/ORBITAL DEBRIS PROGRAM OFFICE...
Space junk is the colloquial name for orbital bits that do nothing useful: spent rockets, fragments splayed by collisions and degradation, old satellites no one cares about anymore. In total, they amount to millions of pieces of debris, many of which are large enough to seriously ding satellites and the International Space Station. And then there's Kessler Syndrome: a space sickness in which low-Earth orbit is so overpopulated that collisions cascade into more collisions, which create more debris that causes more collisions that cascade into more collisions. It's all very bad for
Sandra Bullock. And it's about to get worse: Thousands and thousands of satellites are set to launch to low-Earth orbit before 2025.
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Kessler Syndrome:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome
