American officials are considering ramping up defenses against one of China's most ubiquitous technologies: drones. The Department of Commerce is exploring a rule that could restrict or entirely ban Chinese drones in the U.S. 

This new rule would "secure and safeguard the information and communication technology" for drones in the U.S., the Commerce Department said in a statement. Officials believe foreign involvement in the drone supply chain "may offer our adversaries the ability to remotely access and manipulate these devices, exposing sensitive U.S. data." 

The potential new rule comes at the behest of the Biden administration. However, with President Joe Biden leaving office, the decision will ultimately be made by President-elect Donald Trump.

Why is the US worried about them?
Drones have "evolved over the past decade to include sophisticated cameras, receivers and artificial intelligence abilities," said The New York Times. This has led to "concerns that they could be turned into a useful tool for an adversarial government." The Commerce Department also noted that Chinese drones, which account for 75% of those sold in the U.S., could "damage physical infrastructure in a collision, deliver an explosive payload or gather information about critical infrastructure," which could create additional national security concerns. 

Most pressing to the U.S. is DJI, a company in Shenzhen, China, that sells over half of all commercial drones in the U.S. American officials have "repeatedly raised concerns that DJI drones pose data transmission, surveillance and national security risks, which the company rejects," said Reuters. DJI has also been added to a list of companies "allegedly working with Beijing's military."

What would a ban mean?
If passed, the ban "could impose restrictions similar to those that would effectively ban Chinese vehicles" from the U.S.," said Reuters. It would focus on drones with "Chinese and Russian equipment, chips and software."

This would be the "latest move in the escalating trade and tech decoupling between the world's two largest economies," said the South China Morning Post. And there will be an investigation into "threats posed by foreign adversaries and the potential economic impact of the proposed regulations on affected entities."

A U.S. Air Force weather satellite that broke up in space just before Christmas has added a further 50 pieces to the estimated 130 million bits of "space junk" in the Earth's orbit. This ever-increasing amount of debris has heightened fears about a hypothetical phenomenon called Kessler syndrome that some experts say could pose a real threat to our planet. 

What is it? 
The syndrome is named after American astrophysicist Donald Kessler and based on a 1978 academic paper he wrote, but the precise definition is "muddy" and has varying interpretations, said CNN. It "broadly describes" a chain reaction scenario in which a collision "sends out a plume of fragments" that, in turn, "smash into other spaceborne objects," creating "more detritus." This "cascading effect" may continue until the Earth's orbit is "so clogged with junk" that it impacts everyday life. 

What effect could it have? 
The "scientific community hasn't yet reached a consensus about whether the Kessler syndrome has begun or, if it has not begun, how bad it will be when it starts," said Aerospace America magazine. In a worst-case scenario, a "cloud of space junk surrounding the Earth" risks "cutting off operations" for all technology that relies on satellites, such as weather forecasts, GPS and television, said the Daily Mail. 

A Kessler syndrome event "would affect everybody on the planet," said Paul Lynam, an astronomer at the University of California's Lick Observatory. An "overcrowded orbital space" could also mean "our dreams of going to the Moon or further would be dashed," said the U.K.'s National Space Centre. 

What can be done? 
Prototypes have "already been tested and missions have been scheduled" to "help clean up our orbit," said the National Space Centre. A project led by the U.K.'s University of Surrey successfully captured a shoebox-size object by "smothering it in a huge net" and harpooned another piece of "dummy debris." And it will use a "giant membrane" to pull the object toward Earth so it "burns up safely in our atmosphere."