Space now a trashy place

As large as space stations or as small as a fleck of paint, about 27,000 pieces of space debris are floating through orbit. A collision between space debris and other matter can be catastrophic given the speed at which orbital objects travel.

In 2019, there were about 20,000 pieces of debris in orbit.

To read the article, see “Look out below: What will happen to the space debris in orbit?,” October 1, 2021.