How do so many space artifacts end up orbiting Earth and endangering us, instead of falling into Earth or off somewhere else?

Question

How do so many space artifacts end up orbiting Earth and endangering us, instead of falling into Earth or off somewhere else?

In:

Answer 1

They don’t have enough energy to go off somewhere else. The escape velocity for the Earth is about 11 km/second. Anything going less than that will stay in some sort of orbit, maybe circular, maybe very eliptical. The only way that won’t continue is if the orbit intersects
with the Earth or the orbit dips low enough to be slowed down by air resistance to make the orbit intersect, and then they crash land or burn up.