Space junk re-entering Earth's atmosphere could have as much as a one-in-10 chance of killing a person in the next decade, a recent B.C. study suggests.
The team explained that rockets are used to launch satellites into space and that parts of those rockets are often left in orbit. But if they're low enough, they can re-enter the atmosphere "in an uncontrolled way."
"Is it permissible to regard the loss of human life as just a cost of doing business, or is it something that we should seek to protect when we can? And that's the crucial point here: we can protect against this risk," said lead author Michael Byers, professor in UBC's department of political science, in a news release about the team's findings.
The team also determined that rocket debris is three times more likely to land in the global south, along latitudes of Jakarta, Dhaka and Lagos, than those of New York, Beijing or Moscow, because of the orbits used when launching satellites.
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