So this is depressing but not surprising. We really need to start figuring out how to clean up all the garbage we leave behind. The planet is already full of it and every day there is more, it looks like there is plenty already now orbiting above our heads.
Earth will have Saturn-like rings ‘made of space junk’:
University of Utah researcher Jake Abbott said that “Earth is on course to have its own rings.”
“They’ll just be made of space junk,” he told the Salt Lake Tribune earlier this month.
Four of our solar neighbors — Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune and Uranus — boast some type of rings, the second of which is the most spectacular example of all, of course. The signature broad rings adorning Saturn are made of ice and rock that have been locked in the planet’s orbit. The same generally goes for the rest, with varying compositions of ice and cosmic dust.
But not Earth’s. Ours is wholly human-made — from discontinued and damaged satellites, rockets and other space-based collisions.
