Chinese satellite breakup creates centuries-long space debris threat in rare orbit

A Chinese satellite has shattered in orbit, seeding a rare and gravitationally stable zone of space with debris that will not decay for centuries. Unlike the familiar wreckage of lower orbits, which the atmosphere slowly reclaims, these fragments will circle the Earth indefinitely — patient hazards in a region where the usual forces of return do not apply. The incident joins a long human pattern of leaving marks in places we do not fully govern, and raises once again the question of whether our reach into the cosmos is outpacing our wisdom about what we leave behind.