Climate change is creating many challenges for our planet, and it’s not just affecting the weather. A recent study from MIT shows it could also impact the paths of satellites in low Earth orbit.
Researchers discovered that as global temperatures rise due to carbon emissions from coal, oil, and gas, the amount of space available for satellites may drop significantly. By the end of the century, this reduction could range from one-third to as much as 82%, depending on how much pollution we produce.
Why is this happening? Climate change is causing more space debris to accumulate. Normally, natural processes help clean up some of this junk, but those processes are changing. The greenhouse gases that warm our lower atmosphere are cooling the upper atmosphere, where satellites operate. This cooling makes the upper atmosphere less dense, which leads to less drag on debris. As a result, trash in space stays up there longer.
“We depend on the atmosphere to help manage our space debris,” explained Will Parker, the lead author of the study. “There’s no other way to remove it.” And he emphasizes that this debris is dangerous—millions of pieces, some just a few millimeters wide but capable of crashing into satellites with immense force.
There are currently about 11,905 satellites orbiting Earth, with 7,356 of them in low Earth orbit. These satellites are critical for vital services like communication, navigation, weather forecasts, and national security. However, the increasing debris risk could threaten their operation.
In the past, people often thought of space as vast and endless. But we’ve seen that’s not true. A notable example was a satellite collision in 2009 that created thousands of pieces of space junk.
Measurements from NASA show the amount of atmospheric drag is decreasing. This means that climate change is becoming an important factor in understanding how space debris behaves. Ingrid Cnossen, a space weather scientist from the British Antarctic Survey, added that the findings of this study make sense. Scientists must consider the impact of climate change on orbital stability to protect our satellite systems for the future.
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