Space Debris 1957 - 2023 | Watch this Space - Episode 5

Over 40,000 man-made objects have been tracked in Earth orbit since 1957. Many of the objects have since burned up in the atmosphere and currently there are just over 17,000 trackable objects in orbit. Less than 10% of these active satellites.

This visualisation, created by Dr Stuart Grey, lecturer at University College London, shows how the amount of space debris has changed since the dawn of the space age.

The tracking data covers objects over 10cm in size and is supplied by https://www.space-track.org

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