What is the chance your plane will be hit by space debris? The risk of flights being hit by space junk is still small, but it's growing. About three pieces of old space equipment --used rockets and defunct satellites--fall into Earth's atmosphere every day, according to estimates by the European Space Agency. By the mid-2030s, there may be dozens thanks to the rise of megaconstellations in orbit. So far, space debris hasn't injured anybody--in the air or on the ground. But multiple close calls have been reported in recent years.

Old rocket parts and decommissioned satellites are whizzing around in low Earth orbit, where they risk colliding with the ever-growing constellations of modern satellites being launched. A new listing of the 50 most concerning pieces of space debris in low-Earth orbit is dominated by relics more than a quarter-century old, primarily dead rockets left to hurtle through space at the end of their missions. "The things left before 2000 are still the majority of the problem," said Darren McKnight, lead author of a paper presented Friday at the International Astronautical Congress in Sydney. "Seventy-six percent of the objects in the top 50 were deposited last century, and 88 percent of the objects are rocket bodies. That's important to note, especially with some disturbing trends right now."

Elon Musk's SpaceX and its competitors are making reliable, and decently-fast satellite internet services a reality thanks to a growing armada of shimmering satellites orbiting overhead. Through its constellation of over 6,000, 500-pound satellites, SpaceX's Starlink internet service already reportedly provides broadband to around three million global users, some in remote locations underserved by traditional internet providers. But what happens when all those aging satellites no longer serve their purpose? A new report from environmentally-focused advocacy group PIRG warns the current approach to decommissioning old satellites, which usually involves having them burn to a crisp when re-entering the atmosphere, lacks meaningful rules and regulation. That absence of oversight, they say, could lead to an increase in dangerous space junk affecting Earth, especially as competing satellite internet companies rush to build out and launch tens of thousands of new satellites into orbit.

Earth's orbit is getting crowded. Last year, a record 2,409 objects were sent to orbit, the bulk of which were satellites settling into the increasingly cluttered region 1,200 miles above our planet's surface known as low Earth orbit. Another 2,000-plus satellites have joined them so far this year, according to the UN's Online Index of Objects Launched into Outer Space. As the presence of artificial objects in orbit grows, so too does the accumulation of debris, or space junk -- and the risk of collisions. Dealing with existing waste and preventing its unchecked growth has become imperative, but it's a problem that doesn't have one simple solution. Currently, the US Department of Defense's Space Surveillance Network tracks more than 25,000 objects larger than 4 inches wide, most of which are concentrated in low Earth orbit, and there are an estimated millions of smaller objects still that are trickier to pinpoint.

People in Texas sounded off on AI job displacement, with half of people who spoke to Fox News convinced that the tech will rob them of work. With new developments in generative artificial intelligence bringing the technology to the forefront of public conversation, concerns about how it will affect jobs in the entertainment industry have risen, even contributing in a writer strike in Hollywood. But, founders of Web3 animation studio Toonstar have been using artificial intelligence in their studio for years, and told Fox News Digital it serves as an aid in the creative process. AI can "unlock creativity" and give animators a "head start" in terms of creativity, Luisa Huang, COO and co-founder of Toonstar told Fox News Digital. "But I have yet to see AI be able to put output anything … that is ready for production," she added.

Cate Lawrence is an Australian tech journo living in Berlin. She focuses on all things mobility: ebikes, autonomous vehicles, VTOL, smart ci (show all) Cate Lawrence is an Australian tech journo living in Berlin. She focuses on all things mobility: ebikes, autonomous vehicles, VTOL, smart cities, and the future of alternative energy sources like electric batteries, solar, and hydrogen. This week farmers found big chunks of metal from a SpaceX Crew-1 Trunk in a remote paddock in rural Australia. While it's not an everyday occurrence, rocket body reentries (parts of space debris returning to Earth) are a trend that's likely to increase. Dr. Brad Tucker, Astrophysicist, and Cosmologist at Mt Stromlo Observatory at the Australian National University, went to check it out.

Over the weekend, debris from an out-of-control Chinese rocket crashed to Earth over the Indian and Pacific oceans. There had been fears that pieces of the 23-tonne Long March 5B booster could come down over a populated area, but experts had said the probability of this was extremely low. Nevertheless, NASA hit out at China by accusing Beijing of not sharing the'specific trajectory information' needed to calculate where possible debris might fall. Elsewhere at the weekend, a 10ft (3m) piece of space junk – thought to be from one of Elon Musk's spacecrafts – crashed into a farmer's property in Australia at around 15,500mph (25,000km/h). The object, believed to be part of the SpaceX Crew-1 craft, was found in a sheep paddock by a farmer living on a large property in the Snowy Mountains in New South Wales.

Of the hundreds of millions of pieces of debris floating in space, a significant portion could wind up forming a'ring' around the Earth, similar to the solar system's gas giants, a University of Utah professor has warned. The debris is likely to give Earth'its own rings' made of'space junk,' University of Utah researcher Jake Abbott said in a recent interview with the Salt Lake Tribune. However, Abbott and his team are working on a way to clean up the debris, putting a magnet posted at the end of a robotic arm and using the magnet's eddy currents to collect the space trash. NASA estimates there are at least 23,000 pieces of debris that enter low-Earth orbit (LEO) larger than a softball in orbit, but there are probably 500,000 pieces between 0.4 inches and four inches. It's possible there are 170 million pieces of space debris that are smaller than 0.4 inches, the European Space Agency added.

As the space race heats up, debris has become a burning issue. Since the beginning of the space age in the 1950s, thousands of satellites and rockets have been sent to space and are marooned there. The Union of Concerned Scientists Satellite database has listed more than 4,084 operational satellites currently orbiting the Earth. In 2010, this number was less than a thousand. In the distant future, this problem can extend to the lunar surface and the asteroid belt (the current count stands at 34,000 pieces of space junk bigger than 10 centimetres in size and millions of smaller pieces).

A Russian cargo ship on its way to the International Space Station (ISS) will come perilously close to colliding with one of SpaceX's satellites, according to the country's space agency Roscosmos. The Progress 78 spacecraft, which blasted off from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Tuesday, will also narrowly miss a Falcon 9 rocket fragment left in orbit from 2020. Preliminary calculations suggest the Starlink 1691 satellite will come within 0.9 miles (1.5km) of hitting Progress at 17:32 ET (22:32 BST) tonight, while the booster is expected to miss by 0.3 miles (500m) three minutes later. Near-miss: Russian cargo ship Progress 78 (similar to the one pictured) will come very close to colliding with one of SpaceX's satellites, according to the country's space agency Roscosmos Starlink 1691 was launched in September last year but is understood to have been lowered out of operational orbit at 340 miles in April. This artist's impression shows a Starlink satellite The close approach will take place just three-and-a-half hours before the spacecraft is set to dock with the ISS at 21:02 ET (02:02 BST) on July 2. Roscosmos said: 'Preliminary data show the Starlink 1691 satellite approach the Progress MS-17 spacecraft at 21:32 UTC at a distance of about 1.5 km.