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, of which 5,442 are operational, according to Astronomer Jonathan McDowell who tracks the constellation on his website.

See also : e-waste  climate canary  plutoed  
NetLingo Classification: Online Jargon

Updates