There are nearly ten thousand man-made objects larger than a softball in Earth orbit. Of these, only seven percent are operational satellites. The remaining ninety-three percent consists of dead satellites, rocket fragments and debris.
So there are 905 operational artificial satellites orbiting around the Earth …
and there are a couple thousand* non-operational artificial satellites floating around out there …
… and now they’re crashing into each other!
Oh yeah, and don’t forget about the TONS of space debris that’s just floating around, including an astronaut’s tool bag that is visible from Earth!
“Oh, great”
And there it goes!
I guess I might be the last person on Earth to know about all of this, but I find it extremely fascinating.
And if you’re like me and are just now learning about all of this, don’t worry — when they lose altitude, they end up burning up before they ever hit the Earth. So you won’t be hit by an old satellite while you’re walking your dog around the neighborhood.
Hopefully.
*I can’t find an accurate number, so that’s just a round figure.
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
I’m not worried about the space rocks, but the toolbox has me a bit concerned. If it was my husband he would choose high grade metals that would survive reentry and maim people.
I thought only I’d care about trivial things like that, too! Fascinating.
Sup? thanks a million for the brilliant tutorial. The tutorial helped me improving my skills badly. It’s at all times excellent to get some newly inspiration and I hope to find more of such posts here soon because nobody will ever stop learning new things. Props