The sky is becoming more cluttered with satellites and space junk. This is affecting astronomical study, but will only have a minor effect — if any — on the viewing of the solar eclipse.
The Moon, shot from Pakistan during a lunar eclipse.
AP Photo/Fareed Khan
Chandrayaan-3’s successful landing on the Moon made 2023 a big year for lunar exploration, and future years will come with even more discoveries.
As the number of satellites in orbit increase, so will the possibilities of space debris. There are currently 8,000 satellites in orbit, but hundreds of thousands more are being proposed.
(Shutterstock)
Countries have submitted applications for hundreds of thousands of new satellites to be launched. The scale poses challenges for overcrowding orbit, with environmental and safety challenges.
Earth’s orbits are getting more and more crowded. To keep track of everything and avoid collisions and catastrophes, we need a new field: space domain awareness.
An artist’s rendering of debris floating through Earth’s orbit.
Petrovich9/iStock via Getty Images
Treaties meant to ensure sustainability in space don’t currently regulate private companies, and not every country has signed on to an agreement for sustainable space exploration.
A mysterious hunk of space junk buzzed through Australian skies last night. It may have been the third stage of a Soyuz 2 rocket just launched by Russia.
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying Starlink satellites launches on Aug. 19, 2022. The Falcon 9 is a reusable rocket and its re-entry is controlled after launch, reducing debris.
(Malcolm Denemark/Florida Today via AP)
Rockets used to launch satellites fall back to Earth, and as their number grows, the risk faced by people living on the ground — or flying in airplanes — increases.
There are more than 100 missions to the Moon planned in the coming years, including the next Artemis missions.
NASA
With more than 100 lunar missions planned in coming years, space junk near the Moon could become an issue for humanity. No agency tracks lunar space junk, so two astronomers decided to do it themselves.
Ralph Cooney, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau
To date, not a single orbiting object has been recovered from space successfully. But several methods are in development to reduce the overpopulation of Earth’s orbit by man-made debris.
Russia’s testing of an anti-satellite weapon risked the life of astronauts on the International Space Station and could have astronomical impacts on Earth.
Artist’s view of traceable debris around the Earth - the debris is shown magnified relative to the size of the Earth.
ESA
Pierre Omaly, Centre national d’études spatiales (CNES)
A Russian satellite has been destroyed in a missile strike, creating a vast amount of debris that joins the tens of thousands of pieces already in orbit around the Earth.
If a satellite is destroyed, the debris fans out in orbit and poses serious threats to other satellites or crewed spacecraft.
ESA/ID&Sense/ONiRiXEL via WikimediaCommons
Russia destroyed one of its old satellites during a successful test of an anti-satellite weapon. A space security expert explains what this weapon was and the dangers of the expanding debris field.
Chances are small that space junk will destroy property or harm a person, and existing space law could deal with such an event. But current law doesn’t address the bigger problem of space pollution.
China’s Long March 5B rocket, part of which will plummet back to Earth in the coming weeks.
Matjaz Tancic/EPA
China’s Long March 5B rocket, after a successful blast-off in April to deliver a space station module, is now on track to crash-land somewhere with a latitude between New York and New Zealand.