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    Dec 23, 2021 3 minutes

    ORBITING JUNK

    Dear HIW,

    As there’s so much space debris, why aren’t spacecraft hit by something and disabled? It seems there would be a high chance of this, but in practice it doesn’t seem to happen!

    Stephen Conn

    There are over 27,000 pieces of space junk being monitored. To prevent collisions, the Department of Defense tracks them via numerous sensors that make up the Space Surveillance Network. Space debris can be both artificial and natural. The latter orbits the Sun, while human-made 

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