He hoped they would not remain inside the field of space debris for much longer.

"Perhaps it was just some chunk of space debris we passed by."

In order to reduce future space debris, various ideas have been proposed.

He has no more desire to become space debris than we do.

Space debris wouldn't come in a steady flow, would it?

"The statistics show you're much more likely to be hit by lightning" than a piece of space debris, he said.

"And it's too early to determine whether Columbia was struck by space debris."

I will feel better when this station and the Enterprise are space debris.

But there was a sizable band of space debris where the third planet should have been.

For example, they said, the agency has taken steps to reduce sources of space debris that might strike the station.

He was just a piece of space junk that happened to get us.

"They run out of gas and they become space junk."

Kosmos 2421 was one of the top ten space junk producing events up to 2012.

The space junk passed within three miles of the station.

One is most commonly used in order to avoid a piece of space junk.

His craft was undetectable - just another piece of space junk.

But now, he said, with the steady rise over the years in space junk orbiting the Earth, that figure has increased to 15 percent.

It will think they are bits of space junk associated with the cluster.

Several satellites over the years have been lost to unknown causes and may well be the first victims of space junk.

To learn more about space junk, read the next page.

China destroyed an old satellite in 2007 with a ground-based weapon, creating more than 3,000 pieces of orbital debris.

That is, he said, whether the damage was caused by falling foam, or by something else, like orbital debris.

Projectiles from the gun fell back into the sea if they didn't hit anything, but orbital debris stays up there for months.

"An international treaty or agreement specifically devoted to orbital debris may be necessary."

Only about 1,000 of these represent operational spacecraft; the rest are orbital debris.

They also often need shielding from micrometeoroids and orbital debris.

We've picked up the orbital debris of two ships, sir.

The windows also had many chips in them caused by micrometeoroids and orbital debris.

As part of a system to help the elevator avoid orbital debris, the mobile platform can be repositioned.

Later examination revealed two hundred small craters caused by orbital debris, much more than anticipated.