In October 1957, a country called the Soviet Union sent the first human-made satellite, named Sputnik 1, into space. The U.S. launched its first satellite a few months later. In 1961, a Soviet spacecraft carried the first astronaut beyond Earth.
Since then, hundreds more astronauts have traveled into space. And scientists have sent thousands of satellites to orbit, or circle, the planet. Some satellites take pictures of our solar system. Others help scientists predict the weather on Earth. Communications satellites beam TV signals and enable us to make phones calls around the world.
Satellites and other objects sent to space don’t stay in use forever. Over time, most break apart and burn up in Earth’s atmosphere. Some debris reaches Earth’s surface, like the object that crashed into the home in Florida. But most of what makes it through the atmosphere falls into the ocean. So far, there’s no record of anyone being injured by space junk.
Some of the waste that’s floating around in space could end up being there for centuries. NASA, the U.S. space agency, estimates that more than 100 million pieces of junk are currently orbiting our planet.