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Scientists have called for a legally-binding treaty to ensure Earth’s orbit isn’t irreparably harmed by the future expansion of the global space industry.

In the week that nearly 200 countries agreed to a treaty to protect the High Seas after a 20-year process, the experts believe society needs to take the lessons learned from one part of our planet to another.

The number of satellites in orbit is expected to increase from 9,000 today to over 60,000 by 2030, with estimates suggesting there are already more than 100 trillion untracked pieces of old satellites circling the planet.

While such technology is used to provide a huge range of social and environmental benefits, there are fears the predicted growth of the industry could make large parts of Earth’s orbit unusable.

Writing in the journal Science, an international collaboration of experts in fields including satellite technology and ocean plastic pollution say this demonstrates the urgent need for global consensus on how best to govern Earth’s orbit.

They acknowledge that a number of industries and countries are starting to focus on satellite sustainability, but say this should be enforced to include any nation with plans to use Earth’s orbit.

Any agreement, they add, should include measures to implement producer and user responsibility for satellites and debris, from the time they launch onwards. Commercial costs should also be considered when looking at ways to incentivise accountability. Such considerations are consistent with current proposals to address ocean plastic pollution as countries begin negotiations for the Global Plastics Treaty.

The experts also believe that unless action is taken immediately, large parts of our planet’s immediate surroundings risk the same fate as the High Seas where insubstantial governance has led to overfishing, habitat destruction, deep-sea mining exploration, and plastic pollution.

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adg8989

Hmmmm, who could have ever imagined not picking up your toys/garbage makes a litter/clutter problem. Who is in charge? I'd like to have a word with their mom.

Might be a good thing at this point.

Why is this written like it's a new concern?

Kessler syndrome, 1978 & 2009
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome

"who could have seen this coming, says only planet that actively works to cause this."

Because it is. Every day that passes is more and more worrying. Aswell is because many scientists is calling now to action again, so yes, it's important

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"so as it be below, let it be above" would seem to apply here...

not happy about this, BTW

OP is using Internet Explorer.

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where doesn’t this apply

We’re blaming the mom? You can find her at r/unitedkingdom

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The only planet? Is Saturn a joke to you?

Psh, how many objects did Saturn put up into its orbit? Catch things sure but lift things up? It's practically a moon in that category.

Some days I wonder if we wouldn't be better off if communications were set back a few decades.

Here’s my weird sci fi conspiracy theory that is probably 100% scientificly incorrect. What if the space junk created an amplification of sorts of solar flares causing a mass EMP type event? Time to start up my faraday cage business.

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Roe v Wade reversal, repealing child labor laws, daily toxic spills, and so on: the US is doing just fine on its own "setting modern society back decades"

We’ll probably wait for Some accident/disaster to happen and then act

Setting it back to before the time of twatter would be nice.

What makes us human? Bipedal? Thumbs? Brains? I'd argue it's our ability to make funny sounds, create symbolic speech and teach eachother (fire, farming, and how a clit works)

The internet, then, has made us super-human.

I do not wish to lose our superpowers.

Take it easy.

This brings to mind that episode of Cowboy Bebop with the long forgotten satellite that became sentient and drew some stick figure friends.

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Bro needed the internet to learn of the clit

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They keep calling what hit the Soyuz on the ISS a "micrometeroid", but the highest probability is that it was space junk. Nobody wants to call it that because it would just reinforce the karma aspect of the Russians having performed an ASAT test that generated space junk in the ISS altitudes.

Part of my dystopian sci-fi imagery is a host of space junk vacuum bots roaming earth's orbits sucking up pieces to make in and out flights a little more safe, creating temporary open pathways to fly through.

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We were already told in school to clean up after us if we fly to space

Half of that prediction is probable.

Call it a wall to keep aliens out and people will clap.

for sure. It's obviously in the interest of anyone who wants to, like, send more than one thing to space.

At scale, there are too many who won't pick up after themselves unless required. It could / should have been done earlier. This effort towards functioning, enforced international regulation is sorely needed.

Leave it to the misguided ingenuity of humans to figure out the technology to expand our trash empire outside our planet.

But that would cost money!

Let's table this until we have a way to do this for free, or better yet, until someone can make some money off of it.

There is actually an anime called Planetes that is about characters clearing up junk in space around the planet.

It could actually end up a reality.

The manufacturing defect-caused leak? The debris impact theory is pretty much debunked now that two leaked in the same way, and the next one is delayed to fix the same defect.

Need to make a distinction between satellites that are in low orbits that naturally decay very quickly and those that are not.

Most of those 60,000 satellites will be in the former category.

I also heard that because of the immense speeds these objects are moving, one hit would cause both to shatter into tons and tons of tiny pieces that would expand and fly out hitting more and more things out there. Exponential problem

>Researchers say derelict objects left in orbit and other disintegrating space junk may cause a catastrophic collision above our atmosphere.

Ever see the movie GRAVITY? The bigger question was left for a sequel that never happened...

Naah, I blame the father. Men and bois like to play with rockets.

Social media has made us sub-humans.

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