When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission.The European space freighter ATV “Jules Verne” burns up over an uninhabited area of the Pacific Ocean at the end of its mission on Sept. 29, 2008. | Credit: ESA/NASAAt least three large pieces of space debris — old satellites and spent rocket stages — fall back to Earth every day on average, but researchers have only a very limited understanding of where these potentially dangerous fragments land and what happens to them in the atmosphere. A new method, based on sonic boom tracking by earthquake sensors, could provide real-time information about the hurtling debris fragments’ whereabouts.In November 2022, Spain and France shut parts of their airspace for about 40 minutes as a giant piece of a Chinese rocket was predicted to potentially come crashing down in southern Europe. The shutdown diverted or delayed hundreds of flights and cost millions of dollars. The rocket body eventually reentered on the other side of the globe, reentering over the Pacific Ocean.AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementThe incident demonstrated how little current space traffic monitors know about the behavior of stuff returning from orbit. The new method, developed by researchers from Johns Hopkins University and Imperial College London, could help us get a better handle on the problem in the future.The space community predicts paths of reentering space debris based on measurements from a global network of radars and optical telescopes. This approach is sound, but it has limitations.”The space situational awareness radars and optical tracking are great when the object’s in orbit,” study lead author Benjamin Fernando, a postdoctoral fellow at Johns Hopkins University, told Spa …
