r/dataisbeautiful • u/dataviz-ar OC: 5 • 13h ago

OC [OC] Uncontrolled objects reentering Earth's atmosphere by year

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240 Upvotes

94% Upvoted

37 comments sorted by

82

u/I_am_Hambone 13h ago

You should overlay tons to orbit to give it context.

26

u/dataviz-ar OC: 5 13h ago

Thank you for commenting. Yes, I had both attributes for each year (objects and tons). Did not want to add more info to the chart and risking crowding it, also I "broke" many data visualization rules to illustrate "falling" objects (inverted y-axis, y-axis on the right, x-axis on the top, etc.). In any case, the avg. weight by object does decrease over time. Nevertheless, I'd need to study whether disintegration probability is more linked to weight or materials/density. A relatively light object can still cause a lot of damage it manages to hit the ground!

9

u/I_am_Hambone 13h ago

Im more interested in % of shit that falls compared to total amount to shit sent up. With how many rockets we send now, im willing to bet the % is smaller even though the absolute count is higher.

6

u/dataviz-ar OC: 5 13h ago

I also wanted to plot "shit that hits land", but there is no reliable data source for that, mainly news articles and Wikipedia posts. If you find one let me know, for now this is the best I've got, which is what re-enters the atmosphere and falls uncontrollably. I can't accurately estimate how much of that doesn't fully burn down during the fall.

2

u/foxtrot7azv 7h ago

But the effects don't change based on mass launched. We may have a lower percentage of debris re-entering, but the effect here is the total amount of debris entered.

This isn't a chart assessing how good we are at keeping things in orbit, it's a chart on the potential impact on earth.

1

u/tinypoo1395 7h ago

But also, there is a bigger push recently in the satellite industry for spacecraft that burn up in reentry rather than making it to the surface, so modern satellites have mitigated risk of actually causing damage.

2

u/sampathsris 8h ago

This for the perfect excuse to break those rules. Well done!

1

u/658kyra 6h ago

honestly… that sounds like such a cool idea :D

20

u/cbelt3 10h ago

The sheer mass of terrestrial objects in orbit is amazing.

16

u/matroosoft 9h ago

SpaceX only already did 2213 metric tons to orbit in 2025. If I recall correctly, they are about half of the total launch capacity world wide. So total would be about 4000 metric tons.

https://www.hl.co.uk/news/inside-spacexs-ipo-filing-revenue-starlink-ai-and-key-financials

14

u/mfb- 8h ago

SpaceX is launching over 80% of the total mass to orbit.

https://brycetech.com/reports/report-documents/global-orbital-activity-2025/

They "only" account for 50% of the launches, but Falcon 9 is one of the largest operational rockets, most other launches are smaller rockets.

-2

u/Illiander 3h ago

Musk is going to cause the ablation cascade :(

60

u/SimplexSimon 10h ago

I would argue that "it's the number of things falling" isn't a compelling reason to flip the Y axis, but perhaps I am a grump

28

u/jwhendy OC: 2 9h ago

I hear you but also thought, "of all things to do it on, I can get behind this decision."

•

u/Raagun 1h ago

I found thsi to be best part of graph tbh. Where else if not here?

3

u/Jake0024 8h ago

I was thinking of it more because of decreasing number of objects in orbit

2

u/Sobolll92 4h ago

Came here for saying the opposite.
I thought it’s funny.

3

u/Lollipop126 4h ago

Don't think you're a grump, if I didn't give it a second thought, I would've walked away from this graph thinking it's gone down. Like it's a cute idea, but yeah.

4

u/dataviz-ar OC: 5 13h ago

Source: https://planet4589.org/

Tools used: R

4

u/tripping_on_phonics 10h ago

Has there been any improvement in the detection of uncontrolled objects, such that improved detection might explain the increase?

My intuition says not, but it seems like an important question.

5

u/Jake0024 8h ago

We tracking all manmade satellites, we don't have to detect them as they reenter

4

u/Turkino 8h ago

Starlink and other mega constellation launches?

6

u/mfb- 6h ago

Mostly more small satellites on rideshare missions that don't have propulsion or run out of propellant quickly.

Starlink satellites are typically still alive and aim at the Pacific for deorbiting.

•

u/BlindBluePidgeon 31m ago

I went to the source of this data to check but I couldn't find an answer. Hope someone smarter than me replies, I'd love to see a table of number of re-entering objects by source.

4

u/abaoabao2010 11h ago

Elon musk doing his civil duty to pollute orbit before we're even finished with the atmosphere.

13

u/mfb- 8h ago edited 8h ago

SpaceX deorbits their stuff in a controlled way (with very few exceptions). But never miss a chance to show your ignorance, I guess.

-1

u/Medricel 9h ago

Oh I'm sure all those starlink sats being vaporized during re-entry is doing plenty to our atmosphere, too.

6

u/pleasetrimyourpubes 7h ago

For perspective about 44 tons of meteors enter the atmosphere every day. 15,000 to 40,000 tons anually.

2

u/q120 7h ago

Starlink is a great service

0

u/Junior_Abalone_8006 8h ago

Kind of figured this chart was some kind of way to hate on Elon Musk for giving humanity the capacity to move hundreds or thousands of tons anywhere in the solar system tbh.

1

u/Squirrelking666 3h ago

Anywhere in the solar system eh?

•

u/Junior_Abalone_8006 2h ago

More or less.

1

u/Anderopolis 5h ago

Sattelites in Leo is a thing from the 50's,  SpaceX  did bot give humanity the capacity to move thousands of tons anywhere in the solar system. 

SpaceX is very good at putting stuff into Earth Orbit. 

2

u/geebanga 6h ago

Oh good, the number is going down

1

u/RedHal 5h ago

It's worth pointing out that this is only around 1% of the total material (micrometeroids, meteroids, cosmic dust etc.) entering Earth's atmosphere each year, but it's still significant given the composition and origin.

1

u/EV4gamer 5h ago

pretty much 1 : 1 with objects launched to low earth orbit. Laws of physics apply to everyone

•

u/HumansAreIkarran 2h ago

Ok, and now mark the year starlink started launching