FACT! Many years back we were visiting the small mountain hamlet of Cloudcroft, New Mexico... and came past the gates of the "Orbital Debris Observatory." According to the sign, that's where they tracked every piece of space garbage bigger than about a 1 Euro coin (or quarter)... at the time, they were tracking some 30,000 pieces of junk! Now I understand they track 'em down to 1cm, and there are 700,000 pieces and counting.
FACT! Many years back we were visiting the small mountain hamlet of Cloudcroft, New Mexico... and came past the gates of the "Orbital Debris Observatory." According to the sign, that's where they tracked every piece of space garbage bigger than about a 1 Euro coin (or quarter)... at the time, they were tracking some 30,000 pieces of junk! Now I understand they track 'em down to 1cm, and there are 700,000 pieces and counting.