Space debris

As ships, stations, and other satellites come crashing down to Earth, many end up making planet-fall at the same spot in the Pacific Ocean just south of New Zealand. For years these downed science vessels have simply sunk down to the bottom of the sea in a place now known as the Spacecraft Cemetery.

US government scientists work hard to protect the public.

Some study infectious diseases and effective treatments. Others ensure that drugs, food, vehicles, or consumer products live up to their claims and don’t harm anyone.

At least 170 million pieces of rapidly-moving space junk are now circulating in Earth's orbit and this debris may even lead to a "catastrophic avalanche of collisions" and destroy all working satellites and even threaten economies, scientists said.

Since the dawn of the space age NASA and other agencies have spent billions of dollars to reconnoiter Mars—assailing it with spacecraft flybys, photo-snapping orbiters and landers nose-diving onto its surface.

With various countries across the globe striving towards wireless internet connections, their move could cause the earth's orbit to fill with dangerous space junk.

New data from a French satellite shows potential debris from the missing Malaysia Airlines jet in the southern Indian Ocean, Sunday.