“At higher yield, and with low Earth orbit vastly more crowded than it was in the 1960s, a nuclear detonation would be totally devastating, wiping out a major component of global satellite infrastructure,” says Grant Tremblay, an astrophysicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and vice president of the American Astronomical Society.
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Ellen Nakashima, Christian Davenport and Emma Kumer contributed to this report. Graphics editing by Manuel Canales. Design editing by Christian Font. Photo editing by Max Becherer. Editing by Ben Pauker and Kainaz Amaria. Copy editing by Frances Moody.
