Dr Megan Argo
Appearances
Global News Podcast
New Orleans attack: death toll rises to 15
Still to come on the Global News Podcast... The more launches, the more debris gets left behind in orbit to come down in an uncontrolled way.
Global News Podcast
New Orleans attack: death toll rises to 15
It's been unusual historically, but they are becoming more common, these occurrences, just because of the sheer number of satellite launches that now happen on a daily basis. We had a record number of rocket launches happening in 2024 and it's likely we're going to have another record broken.
Global News Podcast
New Orleans attack: death toll rises to 15
this year, in 2025, in terms of the number of rockets launched, and the more launches, the more debris gets left behind in orbit to come down in an uncontrolled way. Most of the Earth's surface being water, the chances are good that most of this debris will come down in the water and not cause any damage.
Global News Podcast
New Orleans attack: death toll rises to 15
But it is the case that some of it, because it's uncontrolled, because it's unpredictable, does come down over land. And if it does, it can hit inhabited settlements as this one appears to have done today. It happens very, very fast. Once it starts to come down, it doesn't take long for it to then reach the ground. So predicting this stuff exactly where it is going to land is difficult.
Global News Podcast
New Orleans attack: death toll rises to 15
The thing that needs to happen is that companies that do these launches and governments that do these launches need to do a better job of bringing their own debris down in a safe and controlled manner. There's a good chance that debris is not going to hit a settlement, but when it does, it could potentially be quite catastrophic.
Global News Podcast
New Orleans attack: death toll rises to 15
We have had a few incidents of things coming through the atmosphere in recent years. There was a piece of SpaceX debris that hit an Australian sheep farm in 2022, and there have been a couple of Chinese rockets that have disintegrated in the atmosphere, one of which showered pieces across another part of Africa. So this stuff does happen.