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Space junk: a recycling station could be cleaning up in Earth orbit by 2050
There are about 22,000 large objects orbiting the Earth, including working and broken satellites and bits of old rocket from past space expeditions.
If you include all the equipment dropped by astronauts while floating in space and the debris from colliding satellites down to around 1cm in size, there are about one million bits of space junk in Earth’s orbit.
- Jez Turner
- The Conversation
These numbers are likely to be underestimates.
With more satellites and rockets launching each year, collisions with space junk are becoming more likely. Losing a satellite could mean your TV reception is…