'Lightning-like energy bursts' could be used to track the 99% of space junk that can't be seen from Earth

The space junk appears as many small white points surrounding Earth, which has bright blue oceans and green and brown continents. The space junk is thick enough to form a cloud that obscures most of the black background when viewed from the edges around Earth.

Earth's orbit is clogged with all sorts of space junk: defunct satellites, pieces of spacecraft, and even flecks of paint from these human-made technologies.

Now, a new method shows promise for tracking the smallest bits of space litter, down to about the size of a piece of pencil lead — and it relies on "lighting-like energy bursts" that can be detected from the ground when multiple pieces of space junk collide, according to the researchers. The new research was presented Dec. 5 at the Second International Orbital Debris Conference in Sugar Land, Texas.