Space, just beyond the reach of Earth's atmosphere, is kind of like a teenager's bedroom: Even when you try to clean it, it somehow keeps getting messier.
At least, that's one of the findings from the 2024 Space Environment Report published by the European Space Agency (ESA) on July 23. The report offers an accounting of satellites and debris accumulating in Earth's orbit. ESA's latest report, which has been published annually since 2017, is like a census for space activities and shows how bad the problem is becoming. According to its data, there are more than 35,000 objects being tracked by surveillance networks, with approximately 26,000 being pieces of debris larger than 4 inches in size.
