Space Debris Is Crashing Into Earth. Should You Worry? | WSJ

The Wall Street Journal June 2, 2025
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Space debris landing on Earth have sparked safety concerns on the ground about where it is going to land. In February, an upper stage of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket was breaking up as it made re-entry over Europe and debris scattered across multiple locations in western Poland. The European Space Agency believes up to 200 tons of space hardware re-enters the earth’s atmosphere uncontrolled every year. As space launch traffic reaches all time highs, WSJ spoke with space industry experts, who explain whether uncontrolled re-entries could be an accident waiting to happen. Chapters: 0:00 Space debris’s record numbers 0:39 Incident in Poland 1:28 The danger 3:15 Incident in Florida 4:53 What survives upon re-entry 5:59 Crowded space and orbital decay 6:53 China 7:39 Potential solutions News Explainers Some days the high-speed news cycle can bring more questions than answers. WSJ’s news explainers break down the day's biggest stories into bite-size pieces to help you make sense of the news. #Space #Satellites #WSJ

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