What Happens when Space Junk Falls on Your Property?

Debris from satellites, rockets and other space infrastructure are crowding low-Earth orbit. Occasionally, that space junk crashes down to Earth. For Samantha Lawler, an associate professor of astronomy at the University of Regina in Saskatchewan, such debris was mostly a theoretical nuisance. Then a nearby farmer found remnants of a SpaceX craft on his land, and Lawler was pulled into the murky legal landscape around space junk in the skies and on the ground.

Recommended reading: SpaceX Dropped Space Junk on My Neighbor’s Farm. Here’s What Happened Next Space Junk Is Polluting Earth’s Stratosphere with Vaporized Metal Space Trash Threatens the Global Economy

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Science Quickly is produced by Rachel Feltman, Fonda Mwangi, Kelso Harper, Madison Goldberg and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was hosted by Rachel Feltman with guest Samantha Lawler. Our show is edited by Fonda Mwangi with fact-checking by Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck. The theme music was composed by Dominic Smith. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices