During a recent broadcast (first aired on April 3, 2025) of The Excerpt podcast, the topic of discussion steered to a surprising integration of two issues: the rise of space debris and climate change. The primary concern being, what possibilities could the future hold when treasured satellites, providing broadband internet access and accurate weather predictions, morph into the next day's trash hurtling through space?

This engaging conversation aims to answer the questions around the fate of this 'space junk', and how climate change relates to this space waste. Last month, an expert group of aerospace engineers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), disclosed their research findings, examining how climate change is impacting satellites in Earth's upper atmosphere.

The lead author of the insightful study, Will Parker, a PhD candidate in Aeronautics and Astronautics at MIT, graced The Excerpt to elucidate the connections between global warming and satellite health and longevity. Parker's insights reveal a complex interaction between the rising temperatures on Earth and the increasingly populated arena of satellite traffic above us.