Watch 60 years of space debris appear in 60 seconds

Space is full of crap. In fact, there's around 500,000 bits of debris orbiting Earth at approximately 17,500mph.

And now, to highlight just how big a rubbish problem we're dealing with, University lecturer at the Royal Institution Stuart Grey has created this one minute video which shows the rapid increase in man-made space junk (bits of rocket, satellites etc) over the last 60 years.

Since the dawn of space travel, more and more debris has been rushing around in orbit. But, you've probably not considered it a problem.

The smallest of debris has the potential to cause cataclysmic damage to the International Space Station.

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