How Much Space Junk Is Orbiting Earth?

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  You've probably heard of space junk: it's all the remains of human presence in space, including non-functional spacecraft, dead satellites, discarded parts of rockets, garbage bags, nuts and bolts, paint chips, and a spatula. Most of these objects have been smashed into smaller pieces from collisions with other space junk or meteoroids. So what's so bad about space junk?

  [This photo shows an animation of the 5,400 pieces of space debris orbiting Earth that are over 1 meter long.]

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  As we know, things move differently in space. A tiny piece of debris the length of your finger wouldn't cause much harm if someone threw it at you on Earth. It might give you a small bruise. But in space, debris this size can travel up to 22,300 mph, which is faster than a speeding bullet. Now imagine a group of tiny debris hurtling towards a spaceship or satellite at this speed. The result? Well, it's similar to being shot at by a machine gun, so not good. 

  [34,000 pieces of space debris over 10 cm long.]

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  With humanity's obsession with space (we're talking about you Elon Musk) there will only be an increase in space debris. The Space Surveillance Network tracks objects four inches across and larger in case of a potential collision with a satellite or the International Space Station, and the European Space Agency is also working on its own initiative to reduce space damage caused by space junk. Unfortunately, protecting satellites from space debris is really expensive, and the foreseeable future sees space exploration and research as increasingly expensive. 

  [900,000 objects bigger than 1 cm.]

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  Although some of the space junk will burn up in the Earth's atmosphere eventually, most of it will continue to multiply into lots of smaller pieces - if we stop sending things into space (which is highly unlikely). Just like the pollution problem on Earth, we seem to know the theory of how to fix it, but putting it into practice is a whole different story. Lets just hope that when we all relocate to Mars we don't pollute it too.

  [130,000,000 pieces of space debris larger than 1 mm long.]

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