On February 10, 2009, somewhere in orbit above Siberia, a Russian military satellite collided with an American communications satellite.
At the moment of collision, each satellite was traveling nearly 36,000 kilometers per hour.
The aftermath created thousands of pieces of debris, a giant swarm of junk littering one of space's busiest highways.
This was the biggest satellite collision in history, and an eye-opening warning about the worsening crisis of space junk.
Debris from that collision remains in orbit, along with millions of other human-made objects.
The solution is obvious.
Clean up space junk.
But actually doing that is not so simple.
Hey smart people, Joe here.
Imagine you're driving down a highway, only instead of an open road, the path in front of you is littered with every vehicle that's ever broken down on that road, left where they died.
