Why are we seeing more space debris in Earth's orbit?

We're seeing more space debris in Earth’s orbit because we’ve been sending things up there a lot, and sometimes they don’t come back down.

Imagine you’re playing with your favorite toy car on the sidewalk. Every time you push it, it goes zooming forward, but if it crashes into a wall or another toy, it might break apart, and now you have more pieces to clean up. That’s kind of what happens in space.

Earth’s orbit is like a busy playground where many spacecraft, like satellites and rockets, are playing. Every time one of them crashes into another or breaks apart, it leaves behind little bits, these are the space debris. It's like when you drop your snack and it makes a mess on the floor.

And just like how more kids in the playground can make more messes, more spacecraft mean more space debris.

Some of this debris is still up there, floating around Earth like lost toys, and they might even bump into other spacecraft or satellites, making more messes. It’s a messy game that just keeps getting bigger!