When fragments of satellites and space shuttles separate, what happens to those chunks, floating in space? They just keep floating.

One of the things the UN worries about when it talks about space issues is:

What are we going to do with all that space junk! What if it hits a spaceship? What if it lands on a planet?

You might think it's strange, but until now, a lot of people thought it would be OK to just leave junk in space!

Even though the Universe is expanding infinitely, should it be dotted with floating pieces of Earth-generated waste? How do you think space garbage could be detected? How IS it detected? Should space technology be able to pick up after itself before it's allowed out of our atmosphere?

More than 8500 objects which could be classified as "space debris" can be detected through ground-based surveillance and radar detection systems.