Please let me know if this doesn’t belong in this community; I’m not sure.
References
- Type: Video. Title: “Megaconstellations May Be Just 2 Days Away From Causing a Kessler Syndrome”. Author: “Anton Petrov”. Publisher: YouTube. Published: 2026-01-01T22:00:38Z. Accessed: 2026-01-02T10:23Z. URI: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b66ZZ05wKC0.
It’s not exactly the wrong place to post something about Kessler syndrome, but it’s obnoxious to post a video link instead of explaining the idea and/or linking to a written source.
Looking up Kessler syndrome online, the “2 days away” thing seems to mean that satellites have maneuvering thrusters to avoid collisions with each other. If a big enough solar flare knocked out all the collision avoidance stuff in the satellites, then within 2 days (3 days is what the other source said) there could potentially be enough collisions to trigger the syndrome.
Anyway people launching stuff are now at least aware of the issue and taking some kinds of precautions, maybe not enough.
The paper from December 10:
https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.09643
There have been a handful of headlines in the last few months that have me a little more worried: the Shenzhou debris strike, Chinese satellite to Starlink 200 meter near miss, exploded/dead Starlink, and 4400 Starlinks lowering orbits.
Anton is a treasure though.
And may not be
Ah, the wonders of science!
Hello wonderful fedditor!
Try posting this in science, too.
