This graphic shows the massive growth of space junk orbiting Earth since 1957

There's a lot of space junk orbiting the Earth these days. Right now, NASA is tracking about 20,000 pieces of spent rocket parts, defunct satellites and bits of debris larger than a softball that are hurtling around the planet at more than 17,000 mph. There are also about 500,000 objects the size of a marble or larger being tracked as they orbit Earth and millions more that are too small to track, according to NASA. More

(Source: Mashable - Dec 27)