The future of Earth observation: Private satellites and AI bring benefits but also pose risks

We are a planet-based species: With a few notable (astronaut) exceptions, everyone who has ever lived remained glued to our spinning Earth, which now houses 8.3 billion people. That's the gravity of the situation. But we're also a world of floods, typhoons, earthquakes, heat and cold calamities, volcanic eruptions and even encounters with sun-caused auroras and bruises from incoming asteroids.It's quite a world worth watching — and for decades that's what spacecraft have been doing. But wh