Scientists studying the upper atmosphere have found some unsettling facts. They expected to find traces of elements left by meteroids burning up as they entered Earth’s airspace. Instead, they found surprisingly large amounts of elements like lithium, copper and even lead. There was only one explanation — those substances were deposited by space debris like satellites and rocket boosters that disintegrated upon reentry.

The truth is the skies above earth are becoming increasingly cluttered. The most lucrative part of space real estate is low Earth orbit, about 120 miles to 1200 miles up. Huge groups of satellites are either planned or already occupy this area. SpaceX has over 10,000 Starlink satellites there right now. And higher orbits are filling up as well. Last year, the U.S. Space Force’s public catalog listed almost 25,000 trackable objects.

It doesn’t take much to imagine the implications. The danger of collusions? It’s already happened. In 2009, a U.S. Iridium 33 satellite collided with an obsolete Russian Cosmos 2251 and generated 2000+ pieces of debris. Satellite trails are interfering with Earth-based astronomy. And the disintegration of so many objects and the traces they leave behind are bound to have some impact on our climate, and possibly the atmosphere’s critical ozone layer. Plus, there is a real risk of being hit with chunks of debris; SpaceX paid a Canadian farmer $3700 after a golf-cart size piece of the company’s Crew Dragon capsule’s service module landed in his field.

There are solutions, but they aren’t easy. Satellites are being designed to either drop into the atmosphere (and burn up) or be propelled high into “graveyard” orbits at the end of their useful lives.

But the overall problem, and all its side effects, is only going to worsen over time. It’s literally a problem with no practical solution.

As if we needed something else to worry about.

A good source of information on this subject is Astronomy.com (https://www.astronomy.com/?s=space+junk)