How do so many space artifacts end up orbiting Earth and endangering us, instead of falling into Earth or off somewhere else?
In:
They don’t just “end up” in Earth orbit, we put them there. Space junk is stuff like old, dead satellites and spent upper stages of rockets. Almost all space junk in Earth orbit *does* eventually reenter the atmosphere and burn up. Space junk can’t go somewhere else because it has no propulsion. It’s in whatever orbit it’s in and it’s going to stay there until the orbit decays. Space junk isn’t a danger to us at large, it’s just that it can be dangerous to other spacecraft if we don’t manage it properly.
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