Solar activity makes space junk crash to Earth faster

The growing debris field in Earth orbit may someday endanger our access to the stars. Today, that field consists of nearly 130 million pieces of space junk — dead satellites, old rocket bodies and tiny fragments generated by on-orbit collisions. Understanding how debris shifts in orbit can help to avoid disastrous collisions . And a new study increases that understanding, showing that space debris falls to Earth faster when the sun is more active. …