A new report from Europe raises serious alarms about orbital collisions

Roughly 17,000 active satellites now orbit Earth, up from about 1,000 in 2013, according to CelesTrak figures cited by Ars Technica. Starlink alone has around 11,000, and Amazon and several Chinese constellations are adding thousands more. Experts disagree on how close low orbit is to the cascading collisions known as Kessler syndrome, a debate that matters to anyone who wants an uncluttered night sky.