Artefacts in orbit
We think we’ve seen it all—landfills that spread miles, oceans brimming with waste, with detritus, with debris. Every day we are reminded of this: of all the things we have tainted and all the things we have destroyed. We’ve polluted our lands, our rivers, and our seas. Who’s to stop us from reaching the stars?
On October 4, 1957, the first human-made satellite, Sputnik 1, was launched by the Soviet Union. Sputnik 1 weighed approximately 84 kilograms and orbited the Earth with a period of 90 minutes, sending out various signals to global radio operators. Determined to outmaneuver Sputnik 1, the United States established the agency that is now known as NASA. This marked the beginning of one of the most monumental eras of known history: The Space Age, a period of expansive nuclear power, rapid progression in rocketry, and an intense race between nations to reach the moon. It was a race between daring people and daring things. It was a race of countless crusades into the sky and of victories marked by flags on distant craters on distant moons. Of course, it was also a race that produced an enormous amount of waste.
Space junk (or ‘space debris’) is usually defined as pieces of machinery or debris that humans have left behind in space. This includes large objects, such as dead satellites that failed or were left in orbit, and small objects, such as paint flecks, nuts, bolts, spatulas, and screwdrivers. The amount of space debris rapidly rises each year; according to the 2025 European Space Agency report, approximately 40 000 orbiting objects are tracked by space surveillance networks. Moreover, the number of debris objects larger than 1 cm in size (both tracked and untracked) is estimated to be over 1.2 million. But why, one might ask, is this really an issue? The pollution that we’ve induced on Earth might have glaringly obvious effects on humanity, but why should we be concerned about scraps of distant debris?
First of all, numerous studies have shown that the debris may not remain in orbit forever. As space junk degrades over time, its motion may decrease to the point of escape from its orbital trajectory, instead plummeting into Earth’s atmosphere. This was a case that occurred in January 2025, when a half-ton piece of space junk landed in Kenya. Additionally, space junk that burns up as it falls to Earth pollutes the atmosphere with metals and microplastics. This increases the atmosphere’s reflectivity, thus causing it to reflect more sunlight, which triggers an extreme cooling of the planet.
But, according to Northeastern University space policy professor Anncy Thresher, the more serious issue is the space junk that stays in low-Earth orbit. A worst-case scenario that increases in likelihood each year is Kessler Syndrome. Kessler Syndrome was proposed by NASA scientists Donald Kessler and Burton Cour-Palais in 1978, and describes a situation in which an abundance of low-Earth orbit objects leads to a chain reaction of collisions. As objects collide and break up, Earth’s air space would fill up with a wall of junk that shreds anything that humans try to launch into space. In an extreme situation, this could prevent future attempts of space travel to the moon or to different planets.
Fortunately, solutions are currently being devised to remedy the issue of space junk. The United Nations has proclaimed that all companies should remove their satellites from orbit within 25 years after mission completion. Of course, the removal of a satellite is a difficult task, and several companies have come up with ways this can be done: using a harpoon to catch a satellite, grasping it in a huge net, grabbing it with a large magnet, or firing lasers at it until it loses its orbital velocity. However, no solutions have yet been found for the removal of smaller pieces of debris, such as paint flecks or astronaut tools, which pose their own dangers.
But why, though, must these dangers occur? It is a strange thing to think about—that our planet’s halo of debris was crafted from man-made ambition and man-made greed. Maybe it is a symbol. Maybe it is a consequence of something; of not simply the Space Race but of our constant hunger for more territory, for more victories, for more. We might reach the stars, but this barricade of debris could be a sign that they will not host us.
