The amount of space junk orbiting Earth has reached a tipping point.
According to Nasa, this junk – which can include anything from old rockets, abandoned satellites to missile shrapnel - will soon make it difficult for spacecraft to leave the planet.
A German photographer, Michael Najjar, has created the below image to show just how serious a problem space debris has become.
There are currently around 22,000 objects in orbit that are big enough for officials on the ground to track and countless more smaller ones that could do damage to human-carrying spaceships and valuable satellites.
Based on a data archive, each miniature sphere in the image represents an existing object orbiting in space.
Overall, it is estimated that there are as many as 370,000 pieces of space junk floating in Earth's orbit, travelling at speeds of up to 22,000 mph.
civilisation has littered the area just above Earth's atmosphere with leftover boosters and other parts that come off during launches…