It’s time for another Ask Giz, the fortnightly series where we take your burning questions from across the world of Gizmodo and try to give them an answer.
Today’s question comes from Kevin in Edgeworth. Kevin wants to know: How many satellites are there in space right now?
Let’s get started on this one.
How many satellites are there in space right now?
So before we dive in, I just want you to know that this is a really difficult thing to count – we would be here for hours if you asked me to list off every satellite. There are thousands of them in space at the moment, some of which are inoperable, and some of which are orbiting other planets.
That doesn’t mean we can’t give you a reasonably solid answer, though.
Perhaps one of the most cited resources on satellites in Earth’s orbit is the website Orbiting Now, which offers live data on the satellites circling the planet. As per that website, there are a total of 7,930 satellites in orbit. That includes 7,088 in low-Earth orbit, such as SpaceX’s Starlink satellites, 203 in medium-Earth orbit, such as the Galileo and GPS-powering satellites, and 560 in geostationary orbit, such as the GOES and Meteosat satellites.
There are also 22 listed in ‘graveyard’ or ‘high-Earth orbit’ (an orbit so far from Earth that their systems are inoperable), eight undergoing orbital decay, seven due for reentry soon, and 42 unspecified others.
That is… A lot of stuff in space! Adding to this, there are seven satellites orbiting Mars at the time of writing, plus an additional six that may still be orbiting but are no longer functional, and an unspecified number of satellites orbiting the moon. There have also been dozens of satellite missions throughout space over the past 80 years, with their systems now inoperable, and either gliding through space or now crashed into a lunar body.
So, to summarise, how many satellites are in space? If we were to hazard a guess, it’s probably close to 8,000 in total, factoring in all of the above.
Keep in mind though that we’re counting ‘artifical’ satellites, and not ‘natural’ satellites, which are otherwise considered the moons of planets.
Space is the place
If you’d like to submit a question to be answered in a future Ask Giz instalment, we’d love to hear it.
Ask Giz is a fortnightly series where we answer your questions, be it tech, science, gadget, health or gaming related. This is a reader-involved series where we rely on Gizmodo Australia’s audience to submit questions. If you have a question for Giz, you can submit it here. Or check out the answer to our last Ask Giz: Is 5G Better Than the NBN?