On September 22, the International Space Station (ISS) performed a very dangerous maneuver to avoid a collision from a small piece of space junk. According to NASA, there could be more than 170 million pieces of space junks in the earth’s orbit, and it ranges from damaged rockets to malfunctioned satellites.

Amid this chaos, SpaceX founder Elon Musk, launched its 14th group of 60 satellites from Kennedy Space Center, Florida, as part of the Starlink Broadband project.

After the Sunday’s launch, the number of Starlink satellites in the earth’s orbit became 800. According to Starlink, the ultimate aim of the company is to deploy 42,000 satellites on the earth’s orbit. SpaceX claims that the aim of these Starlink satellites is to provide high-speed internet in all nooks of the world.

Even though Elon Musk’s Starlink project is receiving positive responses from all corners, a section of astronomers believes that this rise in the number of satellites could negatively affect stargazing, and may even trap humans on the earth.

A few months back, the Royal Astronomical Society had expressed their concern over the rising number of Starlink constellations in the low-earth orbit.

“The Royal Astronomical Society notes with concern the launch of the new SpaceX Starlink constellation of satellites into low-Earth orbit, and the potential impact of this and other programs on views of the night sky and on astronomical research. Increasing the number of satellites so significantly presents a challenge to ground-based astronomy,” said the Royal Astronomical Society, in a recent statement.

Several space scientists also suggest that thousands of satellites in the earth’s orbit may trap humans, and could even affect future space missions, as humans are now trying to broaden their horizon to emerge as a multi-planetary species.

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It was on September 22 that the International Space Station (ISS) performed an avoidance manoeuver to avoid a collision from small space junk. Soon after the incident, Nasa revealed that the manoeuver was made possible by a joint operation by the Russian and US flight controllers, and the space agency urged better management of space debris to world countries. And now, a new report has suggested that 75 per cent of space debris in the space is unknown objects.

The new study suggested that satellite-threatening debris in the high-earth orbit is not tracked closely enough, and it could negatively impact the functioning of satellites that are responsible for serving multifarious things on the earth that includes navigation, communication, and weather services.

Human-made trash has been steadily increasing in the orbit since the 1950s as it was during this time that humans started launching satellites. According to space experts, orbital debris comprises old, defunct satellites and, rockets that were used to take these satellites to the earth’s orbit.

“It’s important that we continue to observe the geosynchronous region with large telescopes wherever possible, to start to build up a more complete feel for the faint debris environment. With this survey, we’ve probed deeper than ever before, and still, the population appears to be climbing as our sensitivity limit is reached. While we’re dealing with small number statistics here, it’s unsurprising that we see many more small, faint objects than large, bright ones,” said James Blake, a PhD student at the University of Warwick Department of Physics and the lead author of the study.

A few months back, the International Astronomical Union had slammed Elon Musk’s Starlink project, claiming that the rising number of satellites on earth’s orbit could affect star gazing. Some other space experts believe that increased space debris could trap humans on the earth, as they will be unable to conduct deep space missions in the future due to these rising trash.

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