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What Happens when Space Junk Falls on Your Property?

What Happens when Space Junk Falls on Your Property?

60-Second Science vor 2 Jahren

The space junk polluting low-Earth orbit sometimes makes its way to Earth. Here’s how one astronomer responded when SpaceX debris fell on a nearby farm.

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Debris from satellites, rockets and other space infrastructure are
crowding low-Earth orbit. Occasionally, that space junk crashes
down to Earth. For Samantha Lawler, an associate professor of
astronomy at the University of Regina in Saskatchewan, such debris
was mostly a theoretical nuisance. Then a nearby farmer found
remnants of a SpaceX craft on his land, and Lawler was pulled into
the murky legal landscape around space junk in the skies and on the
ground. Recommended reading: SpaceX Dropped Space Junk on My
Neighbor’s Farm. Here’s What Happened Next Space Junk Is
Polluting Earth’s Stratosphere with Vaporized Metal Space
Trash Threatens the Global Economy E-mail us at
sciencequickly@sciam.com if you have any questions, comments or
ideas for stories we should cover! Discover something new every
day: subscribe to Scientific American and sign up for Today in
Science, our daily newsletter. Science Quickly is produced by
Rachel Feltman, Fonda Mwangi, Kelso Harper, Madison Goldberg and
Jeff DelViscio. This episode was hosted by Rachel Feltman with
guest Samantha Lawler. Our show is edited by Fonda Mwangi with
fact-checking by Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck. The theme music
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