Earth is surrounded by , from fragments of old satellites to exploded spacecraft. The clutter isn’t just an annoyance; it’s a potential hazard for current and future spaceflight. Even small pieces of space junk can damage satellites and spacecraft as they whiz around Earth at up to about 17,500 mph.
According to NASA, there are hundreds of thousands of pieces of space debris larger than a marble. And there are millions more pieces of debris too small to track. Some space junk is just paint flecks from spacecraft. But even these tiny particles have damaged the windows of the International Space Station.
NASA and the Department of Defense help monitor this debris. Larger objects can be spotted and tracked individually. But the smaller the object, the more difficult it is to see and track. A new study describes a method that improves how accurately a telescope can point at debris, ...
