Stumbled on a stat about how many satellites are actually dead up there and it creeped me out

I was looking up something random about space debris after watching a documentary and found out there's like 8,000+ satellites in orbit but only about 2,000 of them are working. The rest are just junk floating around at insane speeds. Found this on some NASA data page. Has anyone else looked into how close we are to a chain reaction collision up there?

2 comments

2 Comments

iris_rivera441mo ago

Wouldn't all that junk just burn up in the atmosphere before it could cause a chain reaction though... I mean most of those satellites are in low orbit and gravity drags stuff down eventually. Feels like one of those problems that sounds scary but is way more complicated than the headline makes it out to be.

hayden5871mo ago

1600 known debris pieces in LEO alone, rough situation for anyone up there.