The number of space launches has skyrocketed over the last few years, rapidly turning the Earth’s atmosphere into a “crematorium” for satellites and other space junk.
Even now, it’s a considerable danger for any spacecraft that dares to orbit the Earth in a cluttered environment. According to the European Space Agency, more than 60 years of space activity have resulted in over 56,000 tracked objects in orbit. Roughly half of them, as meticulously catalogued by the US Space Surveillance Network, are doomed to circle our planet in perpetuity.
Now, a Chinese reconnaissance satellite is making matters even worse. The country’s Yaogan 50-02 satellite managed to reach its highly retrograde orbit at an altitude of around 590 miles, circling the Earth at an angle of 141 degrees, against the planet’s rotation — a highly unusual orbit.
However, as Harvard astronomer and space tracking expert Jonathan McDowell noted on X, the satellite disintegrated months later, resulting in 43 separate pieces of space debris being tracked by the US Space Force at orbits between 372 and 683 miles.
Thanks to its relatively high altitude, the pieces are likely to stay in orbit for a very, very long time.
“The higher the altitude, the longer the orbital debris will typically remain in Earth orbit,” NASA explains on its website. “At altitudes of [500 miles], the time for orbital decay is often measured in centuries. Above [621 miles], orbital debris will normally continue circling the Earth for a thousand years or more.”
Officials have yet to announce what caused the Chinese satellite to break up. McDowell suggested that it could’ve been a “battery explosion or an impact by space debris.”
It’s a particularly precarious moment as the Earth’s orbit continues to be filled with leftover rocket stages and satellite remnants. Researchers have warned for years that a single severe collision between orbital debris could escalate into a cascading series of follow-up accidents, a phenomenon known as “Kessler syndrome.”
The outlook is grim, as detailed in a 2025 paper. An international team of researchers devised a new framework called the “Collision Realization and Significant Harm (CRASH) Clock,” concluding that in the case of a “widespread disruptive event,” it could cause just days for a “catastrophic” Kessler event to threaten casualties on the ground.
More on space debris: Space Junk Now Almost Constantly Crashing Down to Earth
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