Posted on 01/07/2026 10:49:57 PM PST by nickcarraway
The risk of space debris falling through airspace is going up in 2026, according to researchers.
Experts said spacecraft, or parts of one, fall back into the Earth’s atmosphere once a week on average.
Most of this space debris is empty rocket stages, while others are dead satellites whose low orbits decayed enough for them to slip into the atmosphere.
Most of these “human-made meteors” don’t survive long due to the heat and shredding force that come as the objects speed through the air. However, some bits of debris from these objects can survive long enough to fall through the sky, which can be a big problem not just for those on Earth but people and things in space as well.
The safety concern continues to increase into 2026 as researchers at the University of British Columbia predicted in a study published early 2025 that there will be a 26% chance space debris will fall through some of the world’s busiest airspace as they plummet back to Earth.
Another study published in 2020 suggested that those chances will continue to increase, resulting in the chances of a commercial flight being hit by a piece of falling space debris being around one in 1,000.
Although the risk of being hit by space debris is increasing, the researchers said the average traveler should not worry too much for their own safety, as there are much greater risks in the day-to-day life of the average person than being hit by space debris.
That's just nuts. Even one in 1,000,000 is too high an estimate.
Anyway, one in 1000 what? Flights? There are thousands of flights every day, you mean multiple space junk / airplane collisions every day? No way.
This is bullsh&t.
👍
Regards,
i wonder if thats covered in my life insurance policy?...
Yeah you’re good. :)
Where the hell else is itgoing to fall through???
“Expert” a has been drip under pressure.
The one that really worried them was Skylab: The film safe and the two large torquing gyros.
Per the above link....
Andrew McMunn
Enterprise Digital Content Producer
Okaaay...
That title’s a new one on me.
Just did a quick look for him.
If this guy is who I think he is, boy, are enemedia outlets scraping the bottom of thr barrel now.
“Although the risk of being hit by space debris is increasing, the researchers said the average traveler should not worry too much for their own safety”. OK, I probably won’t.
Chinese Junk -- it's not just for seafaring anymore.
No one is claiming that one in a thousand flights is going to be hit with debris.
The one in 1000 means that there is a 1 in 1000 chance (0.1%) chance of an aircraft being hit by debris in a year worldwide. Not a 0.1% per flight or even per aircraft. It means that worldwide, every year, there is a 0.1% chance that a single aircraft could get hit with debris.
Looking at the paper the article references, this is sort of in line with what it said - but I don’t find that statement directly in the paper. In fact, in the summary at the start it said that the current estimate is that a collision between space debris and an aircraft is likely to happen once every 200 years, which is on the same order of magnitude, but greater than 0.1% per year.
The risk of space debris falling through airspace is less then an aircraft stay alert.
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