DR. KESSLER, CALL YOUR OFFICE: 2 big pieces of space junk nearly collide in orbital ‘bad neighborhood’: Had the two objects collided, thousands of more pieces of debris could have been created. “As more and more pieces of debris accumulate in Earth orbit, collisions between them can generate even more fragments in a frightening theoretical ripple effect known as the Kessler Syndrome. If left unmitigated, the theory proposes that cascading space debris impacts could someday hinder humanity’s space ambitions by rendering the space around Earth unpassable. To try and remedy the situation, a large number of concepts for how to decrease space debris are currently being proposed and tested worldwide.”

Meanwhile, here’s a piece that Rob Merges and I wrote about orbital debris removal a while back.