There Are Now 100 Trillion Bits Of ‘Space Junk’ Circling Our Planet—And It’s About To Get A Lot Worse

Scientists are calling for a legally-binding treaty to save Earth’s orbit from a massive increase in 'space junk' as the space industry expands.

for Earth’s littered orbit, comparing it to the world’s oceans, which are finally being protected after many decades of overfishing, habitat destruction, deep-sea mining exploration and plastic pollution.

“Now we are in a similar situation with the accumulation of space debris,” said Dr Imogen Napper, Research Fellow at the University of Plymouth, who led the study with funding from the National Geographical Society. “Taking into consideration what we have learnt from the high seas, we can avoid making the same mistakes and work collectively to prevent a tragedy of the commons in space. Without a global agreement we could find ourselves on a similar path”.

The research is keen to capitalise on collective regret felt around the failure—until now—to protect the oceans. “We were well aware of the issue of plastic pollution a decade ago, and had we acted then the quantity of plastic in our oceans might be half of what it is today,” said Professor Richard Thompson OBE, Head of the International Marine Litter Research Unit at the University of Plymouth.

We have summarized this news so that you can read it quickly. If you are interested in the news, you can read the full text here. Read more:

ForbesTech /  🏆 318. in US

Canada Latest News, Canada Headlines

Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.

Column: Tesla hits the brakes but rare earths juggernaut rolls onEV motors represent around 12% of global magnet consumption with Tesla accounting for 15-20% of the sector's demand.
Read more »

Scientists Investigated Why Clowns Are So Terrifying and [Sinister Circus Music Plays]Scientists have quantified why people are afraid of clowns — and their findings kind of take the air out of this common fear.
Read more »

New AI tool can aid scientists in hunting for life on MarsResearchers created a significantly powerful tool that predicted probabilities of biosignature detection on Mars at an impressive level of 56.9 to 87.5 percent.
Read more »

Scientists Finally Solve Mystery of Why Solar Probes Keep Fogging UpSpace probes designed to study the Sun are the last places you'd expect to have a moisture problem.
Read more »

In a first, scientists record shockwaves in the cosmic webIn a new research, scientists claim to have observed shockwaves moving through these galaxy clusters and filaments that make up the galactic or cosmic web.
Read more »

Scientists Have ID’d the Worm in Your MescalA team of moth and butterfly scientists decided to go from a restaurant bar to the lab bench to understand mescal’s iconic “worm”
Read more »