space junk

Discarded pieces of rockets and old satellites that circulate in earth's orbit. The original life span of a satellite is on average seven years; there are hundreds of inoperable satellites circling earth.

Historical perspective: NASA estimates that there are more than 100,000 pieces of man-made space debris orbiting Earth as of December 2013. 

By 2020, SpaceX's efforts to build the orbital satellite platform Starlink, put 240 highly reflective satellites in the night sky, interfering with astronomers telescopes' ability to see into space and thus contributing to a new kind of light pollution everywhere. As of March 2024, there were 5,504 Starlink satellites in orbit.  A record 2,877 satellites were launched into orbit in 2023, a 15 percent increase over 2022. There are now 12,597 satellites in Earth’s orbit. Experts warn that this unprecedented crowding raises the odds of collisions that generate clouds of space junk, potentially rendering parts of the planet’s orbit unusable, no thanks to Elon Musk, where is the regulation?