In 1957, the Space Age began with the
launch of Sputnik, the first artificial satellite. Since then, the number of objects humans have hurled toward the stars has soared to the thousands. As those objects have collided with one another, they've created more space debris in Earth's orbit. According to
some estimates, all of that debris and human-made space trash, the number of objects — from satellites to screws — could be in the millions. In this iteration of our
AAAS live show series,
Short Wave co-host
Aaron Scott talks to
Danielle Wood, an assistant professor of aeronautics and astronautics at MIT, about the dangers of accumulating space debris, and how she and others are working to make space more sustainable.
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