Your question's been well answered by ars, but often the next question is: how dangerous would it be to people on earth if it broke? The answer is not at all. A

Your question's been well answered by ars, but often the next question is: how dangerous would it be to people on earth if it broke? The answer is not at all. As lutorm points out the cable would be vanishingly thin - there would be a lot of gentle drifting and no firey death from above.