Latest news with #WillParker
Yahoo
13-05-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Scientists raise alarm after uncovering growing threat circling Earth: 'There are millions of pieces of it'
Space junk in Earth's orbit may increase because of the effects of the same heat-trapping gases that are polluting the air and warming the planet, according to a recent study. A team led by Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers determined that, with Earth's warming, space debris could accumulate enough to reduce the low Earth orbit area available for satellites by between a third and 82% by the year 2100, as the Associated Press detailed. The reason for this, per the study published in Nature Sustainability in March, is that climatic changes high above ground could reduce the effectiveness of the upper atmosphere in clearing up space litter. "Part of the greenhouse effect that warms the air near Earth's surface also cools the upper parts of the atmosphere where space starts and satellites zip around in low orbit," AP science writer Seth Borenstein explained. "The cooling also makes the upper atmosphere less dense, which reduces the drag on the millions of pieces of human-made debris and satellites." Because of that drag, space trash normally gets pulled back toward Earth and burns up along the way. This cleanup effect weakens when the upper atmosphere is cooler and less dense. Orbiting debris endangers equipment that people on Earth depend on for numerous reasons. "Rapid expansion in the utilization of satellites in low Earth orbit for communications, weather forecasting, navigation, defence and more has increased humanity's reliance on the long-term sustainability of this region," the study noted. The AP reported that there are millions of pieces of space junk of about one-ninth of an inch or larger that can carry the impact of a bullet. "A piece of space debris the size of a blueberry can create the impact of a falling anvil," per the Space Debris 101 page of The Aerospace Corporation, a company that tracks orbiting items. "We rely on the atmosphere to clean up our debris," Will Parker, the study's lead author, told the AP. "There's no other way to remove debris. It's trash. It's garbage. And there are millions of pieces of it." Do you think America has a plastic waste problem? Definitely Only in some areas Not really I'm not sure Click your choice to see results and speak your mind. The researchers used modeling to calculate the satellite carrying capacity of low Earth orbit under different carbon pollution scenarios (with different abilities to burn up trash). Possibilities ranged widely, but the estimated reduction in capacity by 2100 was 82% under the worst-case scenario for the most useful part of the orbital space. Scientists and space companies are exploring ways to clean up potentially costly space waste — or to minimize the creation of more. Meanwhile, reducing the impacts of atmospheric pollution on space debris comes down to reducing that pollution. Under the researchers' better-case scenarios, carbon pollution is lower, and the atmosphere keeps burning space trash at a higher rate. Reducing pollution carries with it the connected benefits of limiting other costs and risks to people and the planet that come with overheating at Earth's surface. In addition to government and industry actions to reduce pollution, individuals can take actions big and small — from installing solar panels to finding ways to save money and energy at home. Join our free newsletter for good news and useful tips, and don't miss this cool list of easy ways to help yourself while helping the planet.
USA Today
04-04-2025
- Science
- USA Today
Space junk: the impact of global warming on satellites
Space junk: the impact of global warming on satellites | The Excerpt On a special episode (first released on April 3, 2025) of The Excerpt podcast: What happens when today's treasure – satellites that give us access to broadband internet and accurate weather forecasts among other things – become tomorrow's trash? Or, in other words, where does all that space junk go? And what does climate change have to do with it? Last month, a team of aerospace engineers at MIT released their findings from a research study on the effects of climate change on satellites in the Earth's upper atmosphere. Will Parker, PhD candidate in Aeronautics and Astronautics at MIT, and lead author of the study, joins The Excerpt to discuss how global warming affects satellites. Let us know what you think of this episode by sending an email to podcasts@ Hit play on the player below to hear the podcast and follow along with the transcript beneath it. This transcript was automatically generated, and then edited for clarity in its current form. There may be some differences between the audio and the text. Podcasts: True crime, in-depth interviews and more USA TODAY podcasts right here Dana Taylor: Hello, and welcome to The Excerpt. I'm Dana Taylor. Today is Thursday April 3rd, 2025, and this is a special episode of The Excerpt. Last month, a team of aerospace engineers at MIT released their findings from a research study on the effects of climate change on satellites in the Earth's upper atmosphere. What happens when today's treasure, satellites that give us access to broadband internet and accurate weather forecasts among other things, become tomorrow's trash? Or in other words, where does all that space junk go, and what does climate change have to do with it? Here to discuss the impact of global warming on satellites is Will Parker, PhD candidate in aeronautics and astronautics at MIT, lead author of the study. Thanks for joining me, Will. Will Parker: Hey. Thanks, Dana. Dana Taylor: First, is it time to change our thinking regarding the vastness of space? And looking at the total number of satellites, I understand there are more than 11,900 circling the Earth right now. Is it already too crowded up there? Will Parker: Yeah. We used to live in this world where we had a mentality that space is big and we didn't have to be sustainable in the way that we acted in space because we didn't have to worry about collisions between satellites or debris objects. It was mostly a clean environment when we started our operations in space in the late fifties. Today, the environment is very different. We have, like you said, tens of thousands of objects that are orbiting Earth, many more smaller debris objects that we have a hard time tracking, and so because of that, satellite operators constantly have to dodge debris. So the operating environment is becoming really complex and really difficult, and that's bad news for the long-term sustainability of the environment for us to use for all the things that we rely on space for. Space Junk: the impact of global warming on satellites A recent report from MIT documents the effects of climate change on satellites in the Earth's upper atmosphere. Dana Taylor: According to the Associated Press, there are more than 7,300 satellites in low orbit, which is where we count on our space junk disintegrating. Can you explain this to me as though I were one of your children, just how this part of the atmosphere works? Will Parker: Sure. Well, we rely on the upper atmosphere to clean up low Earth orbit. So we like to think of space as being a vacuum, but really, there's a little bit of air at the very top reaches of the atmosphere where most of our satellites are operating. Basically, if it weren't for that atmosphere, any debris, any satellite that we abandon in space would stay there forever. We rely on that atmosphere to basically reduce the energy from our satellites so that they spiral towards the Earth and eventually de-orbit. So we need that cleaning force. If we don't have that force, then we would have these things in space forever, and that is catastrophic to the environment. We have no way to remove the old junk so that we can have stuff to do in the future. Dana Taylor: What did your study reveal regarding the impact of climate change on the ability of the Earth's atmosphere to keep debris from piling up in space? Will Parker: So we built on some previous studies that had started to show that while we see a significant warming effect from greenhouse gases in the lower atmosphere, we actually see pretty significant cooling and contraction in the upper atmosphere, and so that's caused by two things. One of them is that the greenhouse gases in the lower atmosphere trap heat close to the surface of the Earth and prevent it from reaching the upper atmosphere, and the heat that does make its way into the upper atmosphere is emitted more easily into space. So those two mechanisms together mean that we're seeing a cooling effect in the upper atmosphere where most of our satellites are operating, and because of that cooling effect, we're seeing that the entire atmosphere is contracting, so it's retreating away from low Earth orbit where we rely on that atmosphere for drag on our satellites. The effect of that retreat, that shrinking of the atmosphere, is that it's not doing as good a job at cleaning out low Earth orbit, and again, we rely on that cleaning force because we have no other way to remove most of this debris. So the danger in the thing that we found is that it actually reduces the number of satellites that we can sustainably operate in low Earth orbit because we don't have this cleaning force. So if there's a collision or an explosion, anything that's going to cause debris in low Earth orbit, the consequence of that event is getting much greater over time because it'll take a lot longer to clean it up. Dana Taylor: Do you have increased concerns about the Kessler syndrome where collisions of space junk create a cascade of increasing debris? What's currently being done to prevent satellites from colliding? Will Parker: So the Kessler syndrome is always a concern, this runaway growth in the debris population. It's something that we take a lot of care to prevent. It's important that we're able to model these scenarios and understand how our actions in terms of how we populate space and how satellite operators are acting impact this long-term sustainability. Because once this cascading debris generation starts, there's no way to stop it, and once space is cluttered, it can stay cluttered for decades or longer because it'll close off key routes to space. Today, satellite operators are avoiding collisions by performing maneuvers. So back in the eighties, nineties, early 2000s, we came up with these strategies for how we would avoid collisions between satellites. But back then, we, again, just figured that space was big so it was mostly just an academic exercise. Today, that is not the case. It is fully operational. The Starlink constellation did over a hundred thousand collision avoidance maneuvers last year, so it's something that is very much used in practice by necessity. We need to avoid debris objects and other satellites because it is getting so congested in space, and that's making it more difficult to operate spacecraft there. Dana Taylor: Well, by your estimation, how much time remains to offset greenhouse gas emissions before we see a significant decrease in the number of satellites that can be maintained in low orbit? Will Parker: Well, our study went to 2100, and we saw that relative to the year 2000, we're seeing in the worst case scenario at least a reduction of 50% in our carrying capacity, the number of satellites that we can sustain. It depends. The point of the study is to be able to show that we have a lot of levers at our control to be able to manage the space debris problem. One of them is to more effectively manage our access to space and make sure that internationally, we have rules of how we operate spacecraft and how we manage our use of space. The other that is maybe unintuitive is that you don't need to be an aerospace engineer to make a difference in reducing the space debris problem. Everybody can do their part to try to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions, and every country should be trying to do that for lots of reasons. We don't need more reasons to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions, but it turns out that reducing those emissions not only helps us on Earth. It also helps to enable the long-term sustainability of space, which was a cool outcome. Dana Taylor: And the adverse effects will not be distributed evenly across the globe, correct? Will Parker: Yeah. So what we found is in the lower part of the atmosphere, we can fit a lot of satellites if we're trying to avoid this long-term debris accumulation that we're looking at, because as long as you stay in the part of the atmosphere that is very thick, then anytime you have some sort of debris generating event, it'll be removed from orbit very quickly. And so what we recommended in the paper is if you want to make sure that you are not doing long-term damage to the environment, it's really important that satellite operators reduce the altitudes that they operate at. So if you fly at a lower altitude, it ends up being a little bit safer for the overall environment and is something that I think we're going to start to have to do more and more as time goes on. Dana Taylor: Is the Earth's atmosphere the only way to get rid of space junk? Are there any other options here? Will Parker: So for really large pieces of space junk, so I'm talking large satellites that are abandoned or we have upper stage rocket bodies that are floating around in space, for those things, there have been several companies and governments that have been working on what they call active debris removal strategies. So that means that we take basically independent satellites, we launch them to space specifically to remove these large objects. Basically, it's a one-to-one. We send up a satellite to remove a satellite. That's incredibly expensive. It's something that we need to do, but it is not a scalable problem. We have hundreds of millions of objects when you get down to the really small scales. We have no way to remove those objects. We can remove maybe five or 10 objects a year using this active debris removal, but that will never ever scale to the problem. I liken it to direct air capture for removing greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. The direct air capture is useful for trying to clean up the mess that we've already made, but it's always a lot cheaper to not make a mess in the first place than it is to clean up a mess that has already been made. So that's what we're advocating for. I think that the active debris removal will be a useful component to trying to ensure this long-term sustainability, but really the atmosphere is all we rely on to do 99.9% of the cleanup. Dana Taylor: Besides a loss in critical services such as GPS and global communication, does space junk pose a hazardous risk to those of us down here on Earth? Will Parker: What we've seen recently, certainly in the news, lots of instances of space debris that makes its way all the way to the ground and maybe poses a hazard to people on the surface. That is certainly a concern and it's something that I think will constrain our space activity. It's important to, one, be able to understand what will these satellites do as they're burning up in the atmosphere? Will they burn up completely? In a lot of cases, we thought they would and they're not in practice, so that's a concern and that's something that the space industry needs to work on. The other component is we need to better coordinate between all of the decision makers and all the people that need to know the information that we have available. So if we have a satellite that may not make it to the ground, we need to do a better job of coordinating with airline pilots, with people on the ground that may be impacted in advance, and that's certainly a concern I think for people's safety. Obviously, it's a pretty low risk just because we don't have satellites re-entering all the time and the Earth is very big and it's mostly water, so we haven't seen an issue yet, but as we're launching more things into space and as the atmosphere is removing more of those objects, we're going to start to see more of these reentries happen, so it's important to get a grip on that problem. Dana Taylor: What are satellite mega constellations, and is the rate at which satellites have been launched over the last few years sustainable? Will Parker: The mega constellations are a new trend in the way that we operate satellites. It was initially driven by companies like OneWeb and SpaceX. SpaceX's Starlink constellation is over 60% of all of the active satellites in orbit, and they operate at this point many thousands of satellites in a very tight altitude regime, and they are designed in a very structured way so they can fit a lot of satellites in a very tight space. The idea with these mega constellations, in particular these large constellations in low Earth orbit, is mostly to provide broadband internet to people on Earth. And the reason that they are in low Earth orbit, very close to the surface, is because we have pretty low latency. So for internet, I can communicate with a satellite very quickly, whereas historically, our satellites for internet had to be really far away, and so it took a long time for that signal to propagate. These constellations are an entirely new means of operating in space, and so the rules are fundamentally changing. We don't have a lot of regulations in the way that we use space, especially in the way that we use frequency spectrum to be able to communicate with our satellites. So there are a lot of constraints on operations that these constellations are now starting to stress because we've never had to think about populations in space this large, and that's causing some significant disagreement, I think, within the industry. Dana Taylor: Well, as you know, only a small number of countries have space launch capabilities. What are some of the ethical and geopolitical considerations of space junk here? Will Parker: Like I said, space is a shared resource for everyone. Everyone stands to benefit from it. I think in the last few years, we've seen that the cost to access space has gone down dramatically, so that's cost to build a satellite, to launch a satellite and to operate a satellite. I think that that's really good for the players that have never had access to space before. We have this new accessibility to space that didn't exist before. We have these pathways that are well-defined. The problem is that while having cheap access to space is something that provides this improved access for the people that have never had access before, what's happening in practice is that the people who have always had access are exploiting that resource and really, really trying to expand their use of space in a way that makes it difficult for others to operate there. And so that's the problem, is that, again, we have these major players that have always been around that still dominate the scene and probably will for a long time. We have this new capability for new players to come and participate in space activities, but it is still increasingly difficult for them to do that, and we want to make sure that we give everyone access to be able to use space as a resource because it's valuable to everyone. Dana Taylor: Well, thank you so much for being on The Excerpt. Will Parker: Awesome. Thank you. Dana Taylor: Thanks to our senior producers, Shannon Rae Green and Kaely Monahan for their production assistance. Our executive producer is Laura Beatty. Let us know what you think of this episode by sending a note to podcasts@ Thanks for listening. I'm Dana Taylor. Taylor Wilson will be back tomorrow morning with another episode of The Excerpt.
The Independent
13-03-2025
- Science
- The Independent
Climate change is wreaking havoc on Earth. Soon it will mess up its orbit
Climate change is wreaking havoc on Earth – but soon it will even be messing up its orbit, scientists have revealed. It is poised to exacerbate the growing problem of space debris, potentially shrinking the usable space for satellite in low Earth orbit, according to a new MIT study. Researchers have calculated that the ongoing warming trend, driven by the burning of fossil fuels, could diminish available orbital space by anywhere from one-third to 82 per cent by the end of the century, depending on the extent of future carbon emissions. The culprit? A weakened natural cleaning mechanism in the upper atmosphere. The same greenhouse effect warming the lower atmosphere also cools the upper layers where satellites operate. This cooling reduces atmospheric density, lessening the drag that normally pulls space debris down towards Earth, where it burns up upon re-entry. Consequently, a less dense upper atmosphere translates to less efficient removal of space junk. As debris accumulates, the risk of collisions increases, threatening the functionality of vital satellites. This escalating congestion in low Earth orbit poses significant challenges for future space endeavours, according to the study, published in Nature Sustainability. 'We rely on the atmosphere to clean up our debris. There's no other way to remove debris,' study lead author Will Parker, an astrodynamics researcher at MIT, said. 'It's trash. It's garbage. And there are millions of pieces of it.' Circling Earth are millions of pieces of debris about one-ninth of an inch (3 millimetres) and larger — the width of two stacked pennies — and those collide with the energy of a bullet. There are tens of thousands of plum-sized pieces of space junk that hit with the power of a crashing bus, according to The Aerospace Corporation, which monitors orbital debris. That junk includes results of old space crashes and parts of rockets with most of it too small to be tracked. There are 11,905 satellites circling Earth — 7,356 in low orbit — according to the tracking website Orbiting Now. Satellites are critical for communications, navigation, weather forecasting and monitoring environmental and national security issues. 'There used to be this this mantra that space is big. And so we can we can sort of not necessarily be good stewards of the environment because the environment is basically unlimited,' Parker said. But a 2009 crash of two satellites created thousands of pieces of space junk. And Nasa measurements are showing the reduction of drag, so scientists now realise that that 'the climate change component is really important,' Parker said. The density at 250 miles (400 kilometres) above Earth is decreasing by about 2 per cent a decade and is likely to get intensify as society pumps more greenhouse gas into the atmosphere, said Ingrid Cnossen, a space weather scientist at the British Antarctic Survey who was not part of the research. Cnossen said in an email that the new study makes 'perfect sense' and is why scientists have to be aware of climate change's orbital effects 'so that appropriate measures can be taken to ensure its long-term sustainability'.
Euronews
12-03-2025
- Science
- Euronews
Climate change could reduce the number of satellites that can safely orbit Earth, study finds
By Seth Borenstein with AP A new study says space may become more littered with debris as climate change lessens nature's way of cleaning it up ADVERTISEMENT Climate change is already causing all sorts of problems on Earth, but soon it will be making a mess in orbit around the planet too, a new study finds. Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have calculated that, as global warming caused by burning of coal, oil, gas continues, it may reduce the available space for satellites in low Earth orbit by anywhere from one-third to 82 per cent by the end of the century, depending on how much carbon pollution is spewed out. That's because space will become more littered with debris as climate change lessens nature's way of cleaning it up. How is climate change reducing space for satellites? Part of the greenhouse effect that warms the air near Earth's surface also cools the upper parts of the atmosphere where space starts and satellites zip around in low orbit. The cooling also makes the upper atmosphere less dense, which reduces the drag on the millions of pieces of human-made debris and satellites. That drag pulls space junk down to Earth, burning it up on the way. But a cooler and less dense upper atmosphere means less space cleaning itself, resulting in space becoming more crowded, according to a study in Monday's journal Nature Sustainability. 'We rely on the atmosphere to clean up our debris. There's no other way to remove debris,' said study lead author Will Parker, an astrodynamics researcher at MIT. 'It's trash. It's garbage. And there are millions of pieces of it.' The density at 400 kilometers above Earth is decreasing by about 2 per cent a decade, said Ingrid Cnossen, a space weather scientist at the British Antarctic Survey who was not part of the research. This decrease is also likely to intensify as society pumps more greenhouse gas into the atmosphere. Cnossen said in an email that the new study makes 'perfect sense' and is why scientists have to be aware of climate change's orbital effects 'so that appropriate measures can be taken to ensure its long-term sustainability.' How much junk is circling our planet? Circling Earth are millions of pieces of debris about 3 millimeters and larger - the width of two stacked pennies - and those collide with the energy of a bullet. There are tens of thousands of plum-sized pieces of space junk that hit with the power of a crashing bus, according to The Aerospace Corporation, which monitors orbital debris. That junk includes results of old space crashes and parts of rockets with most of it too small to be tracked. There are 11,905 satellites circling Earth - 7,356 in low orbit - according to the tracking website Orbiting Now. Satellites are critical for communications, navigation, weather forecasting and monitoring environmental and national security issues. 'There used to be this mantra that space is big. And so we can we can sort of not necessarily be good stewards of the environment because the environment is basically unlimited,' Parker said. But a 2009 crash of two satellites created thousands of pieces of space junk. Also NASA measurements are showing measurable the reduction of drag, so scientists now realise that 'the climate change component is really important,' Parker said.
Nahar Net
11-03-2025
- Science
- Nahar Net
Climate change could soon create mess for orbiting satellites
by Naharnet Newsdesk 11 March 2025, 15:57 Climate change is already causing all sorts of problems on Earth, but soon it will be making a mess in orbit around the planet too, a new study finds. Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology calculated that as global warming caused by burning of coal, oil, gas continues, it may reduce the available space for satellites in low Earth orbit by anywhere from one-third to 82% by the end of the century, depending on how much carbon pollution is spewed. That's because space will become more littered with debris as climate change lessens nature's way of cleaning it up. Part of the greenhouse effect that warms the air near Earth's surface also cools the upper parts of the atmosphere where space starts and satellites zip around in low orbit. The cooling also makes the upper atmosphere less dense, which reduces the drag on the millions of pieces of human-made debris and satellites. That drag pulls space junk down to Earth, burning up on the way. But a cooler and less dense upper atmosphere means less space cleaning itself. That means that space gets more crowded, according to a study in Monday's journal Nature Sustainability. "We rely on the atmosphere to clean up our debris. There's no other way to remove debris," said study lead author Will Parker, an astrodynamics researcher at MIT. "It's trash. It's garbage. And there are millions of pieces of it." Circling Earth are millions of pieces of debris about one-ninth of an inch (3 millimeters) and larger — the width of two stacked pennies — and those collide with the energy of a bullet. There are tens of thousands of plum-sized pieces of space junk that hit with the power of a crashing bus, according to The Aerospace Corporation, which monitors orbital debris. That junk includes results of old space crashes and parts of rockets with most of it too small to be tracked. There are 11,905 satellites circling Earth — 7,356 in low orbit — according to the tracking website Orbiting Now. Satellites are critical for communications, navigation, weather forecasting and monitoring environmental and national security issues. "There used to be this mantra that space is big. And so we can we can sort of not necessarily be good stewards of the environment because the environment is basically unlimited," Parker said. But a 2009 crash of two satellites created thousands of pieces of space junk. Also NASA measurements are showing measurable the reduction of drag, so scientists now realize that that "the climate change component is really important," Parker said. The density at 250 miles (400 kilometers) above Earth is decreasing by about 2% a decade and is likely to get intensify as society pumps more greenhouse gas into the atmosphere, said Ingrid Cnossen, a space weather scientist at the British Antarctic Survey who was not part of the research. Cnossen said in an email that the new study makes "perfect sense" and is why scientists have to be aware of climate change's orbital effects "so that appropriate measures can be taken to ensure its long-term sustainability."
