Question about Kessler syndrome
I'm writing a novel set in a post post-apocalyptic world, where society on Earth collapsed a long time ago and has rebuilt itself by the time the novel starts.
I need a reason to keep the people from leaving the planet and using the resources in space. My idea is that there was a world-wide war that triggered Kesser syndrome in the space around Earth, cutting humanity off from space travel for a long time.
Ideally, I'd like to have the events of this novel take place thousands of years after this war that destroyed the world. But I'm not sure how much debris would still be in orbit to threaten space exploration by then.
So my question is, how long could the cloud of debris caused by Kessler syndrome stay in orbit to still be dangerous? Keeping in mind that this debris is not just in low-Earth-orbit but also the higher orbits and this is an extremely dense cloud caused by the collapse of massive space infrastructure.
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