A Ton of Space Junk Tumbles Unpredictably to Earth Every Week

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By Selam Gebrekidan, The New York Times. 

Excerpt: More space debris is raining down on Earth than ever before — one effect of the frenetic race among governments and companies like SpaceX to reign over the skies. Last year, the U.S. Space Force issued alerts for nearly 820 objects entering the Earth’s atmosphere. The government issued alerts for 110 objects a decade ago. “The re-entries happen each and every day,” said Mariusz Slonina, who heads space situational awareness operations for the Polish Space Agency. Huge objects weighing a metric ton or more arrive about once a week, he said. Much of the debris incinerates in the atmosphere or splashes into the Pacific, but when it does not, it plummets to the ground, uncontrolled and unpredictable. ...Elon Musk’s SpaceX, which has more than 10,000 satellites in orbit, has applied to launch a million more. Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origins has similar ambitions and Chinese “megaconstellations” are expected to have hundreds of thousands of satellites.... 

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