NASA Artemis II images highlight increasingly crowded Earth orbit
Technology
NASA's Artemis II mission just shared some incredible shots of Earth and the moon, but what really caught people's eye were the bright dots near Earth.
At first, folks on Reddit thought they were stars, but some of them are satellites.
Thanks to Sean Doran's animation on Bluesky, it's clear our planet's orbit is busier than ever.
Low Earth orbit hosts 16,000 objects
Since 2020, the number of objects in low Earth orbit has nearly tripled, from about 6,000 to over 16,000 today.
If you count all objects (including debris), there are tens of thousands whizzing around at speeds up to 28256km/h.
Even tiny pieces can do serious damage at those speeds, making space missions a lot more challenging now.