There’s a floating garbage dump orbiting Earth, and it’s getting fuller every year.
Space debris — known colloquially as space junk — is the name that scientists give to the thousands of pieces of broken satellites and spacecraft that clog Earth’s orbit. Space junk can be as small as a paint fleck or as large as an abandoned rocket launch vehicle; no matter the size, orbital debris pose a significant threat to the astronauts and spacecraft that work in Earth’s orbit, according to NASA (opens in new tab).
