As space travel becomes more and more commonplace, scientists at the University of British Columbia (UBC) have identified a real risk of people on Earth being killed by falling space debris.
A new study, published in Nature Astronomy, has estimated the chance of falling rocket and satellite parts getting through the Earth’s atmosphere and hurting people, over the next ten years.
Using mathematical modelling of the inclinations and orbits of rocket parts in space and the population density below them - as well as 30 years’ worth of past satellite data - the authors estimated where rocket debris and other pieces of space junk land when they fall back to Earth.
The findings of the study show that there is a 1 in 10 chance of one or more casualties from space debris occurring over the next 10 years.
"The lack of a major incident has prompted people to not be so worried about it," said Aaron Boley, an astronomer at UBC and co-author of the study....