Space Junk
The more missions we undertake and the more satellites that launch into orbit, the more space "junk" that we’re inevitably left with. And we’re tracking much of it:
The U.S. Strategic Command maintains a catalogue currently containing about 13,000 objects, in part to prevent misinterpretation as hostile missiles. Observation data gathered by a number of ground based radar facilities and telescopes as well as by a space based telescope[6] is used to maintain this catalogue. Nevertheless, the majority of debris objects remain unobserved. There are more than 600,000 objects larger than 1 cm in orbit (according to the ESA Meteoroid and Space Debris Terrestrial Environment Reference, the MASTER-2005 model).
Now much of this debris can be tracked in realtime via Google Earth. Pretty cool.
"With the recent discussion of the ISS having to dodge some space junk, many people’s attention has once again focused on the amount of stuff in orbit around our planet. What many people don’t know is that USSTRATCOM tracks and publishes a list of over 13,000 objects that they currently monitor, including active/retired satellites and debris. This data is meaningless to most people, but thanks to Analytical Graphics, it has now been made accessible free of charge to anyone with a copy of Google Earth. By grabbing the KMZ, you can not only view all objects tracked in real-time, but you can also click on them to get more information on the specific satellite, including viewing it’s orbit trajectory. It’s an excellent educational tool for the space-curious. Disclaimer: I not only work for Analytical Graphics, but I’m the one that wrote this tool as a demo."
The U.S. Strategic Command tracks the junk mainly to prevent misinterpretation as hostile missiles; Google Earth does it mainly to offer another cool tool for nerds like myself to play with. But whatever our tracking purpose, one commenter on Slashdot may have the cure to all of our debris woes:
…we should put a black hole in orbit to take care of the debris. we can name it Hoover.
