Space is getting crowded. More than 100 million tiny pieces of debris are spinning in Earth orbit, along with tens of thousands of bigger chunks and around 3,300 functioning satellites.

Large satellite constellations such as Starlink are becoming more common, infuriating astronomers and baffling casual skywatchers. In the coming decade, we may see many more satellites launched than in all of history up to now.

Collisions between objects in orbit are getting harder to avoid. Several technologies for getting space debris out of harm's way have been proposed, most recently the plan from Australian company Electro Optic Systems (EOS) to use a pair of ground-based lasers to track debris and "nudge" it away from potential collisions or even out of orbit altogether.

Tools like this will be in high demand in coming years. But alongside new technology, we also need to work out the best ways to regulate activity in space and decide who is responsible for what.

Active debris removal

EOS's laser system is just one of a host of "active debris removal" (ADR) technologies proposed over the past decade.

It's a fascinating thought to consider.

What exactly did the Sun look like, centuries ago? What would we see, if astronomers back in the time of Kepler and Galileo had modern technology monitoring the Sun across the electromagnetic spectrum, available to them?

Thanks to modern artificial intelligence, there may be a way to actually 'see' just what state the Sun was in, way back in those days of yore. A recent study, titled "Generation of Modern Satellite Data from Galileo Sunspot Drawings in 1612 by Deep Learning" out February 2021 in the Astrophysical Journal of the American Astronomical Society used an innovative set of deductions to compare sketches of sunspots with modern views from ground and space-based observations. The study was led by Harim Lee from Kyung Hee University in the Republic of South Korea.

Galileo and the Sun

Sunspot records represent one of the longest sets of astronomical data available, going all the way back to Chinese observations in 1128 A.D.