Flares from Space Debris in LSST Images

Owing to the exceptional sensitivity of the Vera C. Rubin Observatory, we predict that its upcoming LSST images will be contaminated by numerous flares from centimeter-scale space debris in Low Earth Orbits (LEO). Millisecond-duration flares from these LEO objects are expected to produce detectable image streaks of a few arcseconds with AB magnitudes brighter than 14.