'Tragedy of the commons' in space: We need to act now to prevent an orbital debris crisis, scientists say

Artist's illustration of space junk orbiting Earth.

Humanity needs to start addressing the growing space junk problem now, before it gets out of hand, scientists stress.

Earth orbit is getting more and more crowded, with both active satellites and pieces of debris. There's so much stuff up there that it's far from alarmist to start worrying about the Kessler syndrome, a nightmare scenario in which a collision or two leads to many more, vastly increasing the amount of junk circling our planet.