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The final frontier teeming with man-made rubbish: The incredible pictures of 'space junk' swirling round Earth's orbit
Last updated at 20:37pm on 14.04.08It used to be called the final frontier - the great unknown only the most prized and powerful technology could conquer.
But now, as these images show, the space beyond our atmosphere has become yet one more place blighted by man-made litter, with potentially devastating results.
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The computer-generated images show the mass of swirling debris that has formed around the Earth
Swirling around earth are tens of millions of assorted debris, a 'not-in-my-backyard' problem of monstrous proportions that took just five decades to make.
Known as 'space junk', the detritus consists of derelict spacecraft and dead satellites floating around the earth's orbit.
The spectacular images, produced digitally by the European Space Operations Centre, show how far humans have cluttered outer space in the 51 years since Sputnik One became the first man-made object in space.
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The geostationary ring, at an altitude of about 36 000 km. This orbit is heavily used by telecommunication satellites
In fact, we have littered the space around earth so much the human junk has gathered into distinct rings.
The rubbish consists of all kinds of discarded parts - rocket casing, pieces of metal ejected during collisions, nuts and bolts, dropped tools - documented piece by piece by Nasa.
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About 50 per cent of all trackable objects are due to in-orbit explosion events or collisions
The junk pile even includes human waste material from manned spacecraft which can never decompose.
Most of the waste is caught in an orbit 200 miles above the earth's surface, though it can reach 20,000 miles up. The rings of junk may look beautiful, but they are dangerous.
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The number of objects in Earth orbit has increased steadily - by two hundred per year on average
If the tiniest nut or bolt were to collide with a spacewalking astronaut, it would kill him or her instantly.
The chance of a collision may be small, but problem is big enough that modern spacecraft have to be equipped with shields to deflect objects up to half an inch across.
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The debris travels around the globe at speeds of up to 25,000 miles an hour
And as the amount of waste grows, so the danger to astronauts grows.
As any astronaut will say, cleaning it all up will take a very, very long time.
