Experts say that China's recent test of an anti-satellite weapon against one of its own weather satellites has increased the danger of orbiting space junk, UPI SAID QUOTING THE NEW YORK TIMES. Before the test, U.S. scientists had catalogued 10,000 pieces of debris 4 inches or longer. The Chinese test on Jan. 11 added at least 800 more, The New York Times reported. The pieces of debris overhead range from spent rocket stages and dead satellites to cameras and hand tools lost by astronauts to the fragments left by collisions, explosions and the Soviet and U.S. anti-satellite tests of the 1980s. Nicholas Johnson, chief scientist for orbital debris at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, said that a major collision setting off a debris chain reaction is inevitable. "A significant piece of debris will run into an old rocket body, and that will create more debris. It's a bad situation," he told the Times.
