SpaceX wants to launch a million satellites. Here’s how that could impact the atmosphere and the night sky– www.cbc.ca

Most of humanity has a great propensity to think in the short-term, but generally, long-term considerations — air pollution, deforestation and emissions, for example — just aren’t our thing.

That’s partly why scientists are deeply concerned about a recent SpaceX proposal to launch one million satellites — data centres — into orbit around Earth.

Their concerns range from losing the natural night sky, to losing access to space, to the environmental impact on our atmosphere.

At the moment, there are roughly 16,000 satellites orbiting Earth, 14,000 of which are active. SpaceX is responsible for more than 8,000 of them.