SpaceX rocket: How we’re filling the sky with rubbish

Anything that increases mankind’s knowledge is welcome, so the data generated by the impact will understandably be eagerly examined.

But should there be any other intelligent life anywhere else in the universe, they might also examine this incident to see what they could learn about mankind.

They would immediately see that this strange creature has filled the atmosphere of its own planet, Earth, with noxious fumes and saturated its oceans with undecayable plastic. It has even covered its beaches in the beautiful North East with millions of nurdles (and that’s without looking at whatever the water companies are pumping out today).

Not content with that, this creature is now filling up the orbit around its Earth with rubbish. The European Space Agency estimates that there are 54,000 pieces of debris larger than 10cms spinning around Earth and there are 140m fragments – in total, we’ve left about 15,800 tonnes (the equivalent of 40 jumbo jets) up there.

So an outer space life form would conclude that this man is negligently untidy.

Looking carefully, this life form would see plumes of smoke rising from the European wildfires which show how man has harmed his own planet so badly that it is now burning beneath his feet and then, not content with that, it would see that this hideous creature is now turning on its harmless neighbour, the Moon, firing junk into it as if it were some giant space pinball game.

And this intelligent life form would conclude that man is an arrogant so-and-so who is not as intelligent as he thinks he is.