American spacecraft had to dodge space debris four times in 2008, NASA revealed Tuesday, a fact that highlights both the extent of the space junk problem and the primary mitigation option open to NASA. By tracking pieces of debris larger than around four inches, space engineers can identify some dangerous space junk and meteoroids. If a satellite or spacecraft is in danger of getting hit, they simply... 

The growing sphere of space junk surrounding the Earth is a hazard to spaceflight, as International Space Station astronauts found out Thursday when their home was buzzed by a five-inch piece of debris. As the story about the near miss was unfolding this morning, Twitter users quickly made a provisional claim about where the debris came from by examining space junk data visualized on Google Earth....