Low Earth orbit has quietly become one of the most crowded and hazardous environments humanity has ever created, with an ...

"Do we react for everything which has a chance to reach the ground? Or do we react only for the very large objects, as we did ...

Researchers are developing a real-life tractor beam, with the goal of pulling defunct satellites out of geostationary orbit to alleviate the space junk problem.

Sometimes, what goes up doesn’t come back down — instead, it becomes a problem. Junk is accumulating in space at a fantastic pace, millions of pieces orbit the Earth, from broken satellites to lost ...

China routinely sends astronauts to and from its space station Tiangong. A crew capsule is about to undock from the station and return to Earth, but there's nothing routine about its journey home. The ...

High up in Earth's orbit, millions of human-made objects large and small are flying at speeds of over 15,000 miles per hour. The objects, which range from inactive satellites to fragments of equipment ...

We have launched all manner of satellite and machinery into low-Earth orbit. But what goes up must come down. Most often, these items burn up in the atmosphere upon re-entry, which isn’t good for air ...