#spacejunk

A great interview with @sundogplanets@mastodon.social here: https://thenarwhal.ca/space-junk-falling-50th-parallel/ - very good reporting! everything that’s in low Earth orbit, which is most of the satellites — including all of the 10,000-plus Starlink satellites — at the end of their life, they get burned up in Earth’s atmosphere, because it’s convenient. And so far, it looks like Starlink is actually doing a pretty good job of burning up. Funny, but painfully so. And, for scale: There was a period of time, about six months, where Starlink burned up 500 satellites. That’s around three per day. In that time period, they exceeded the natural infall rate from meteorites by at least twice as much — so, adding at least twice as much aluminium as what naturally comes into the atmosphere every day for six months And it mentions Fedi's favourite Senator @Paulatics@mstdn.ca and the inquiry she launched https://sencanada.ca/en/senators/simons-paula/interventions/689271/37 Thanks for this great reporting, @thenarwhal@mstdn.ca ! #space #spaceJunk #spaceX #satellites #CDNPoli

“As space junk accumulates, astronomer Sam Lawler explains why we should be concerned about the rapid proliferation of private satellites in low orbit” #Astronomy #SpaceJunk #NightSky #Canada https://thenarwhal.ca/space-junk-falling-50th-parallel/