Space is Full of Crap. Literally.

The European Space Agency has just released images showing all the satellites and human-made debris now orbiting space as a result of 51 years of launching stuff since Sputnik. That’s about 6,000 satellites up there—of which only 800 remain operational—plus thousands of other objects from launches and accidents. According to their mindblowing simulations things are getting a lot worse:

About 50 percent of all trackable objects are due to in-orbit explosion events (about 200) or collision events (less than 10).