The European Space Agency (ESA) is Europe’s gateway to space. Its mission is to shape the development of Europe’s space capability and ensure that investment in space continues to deliver benefits to the citizens of Europe and the world.
Find out more about space activities in our 23 Member States, and understand how ESA works together with their national agencies, institutions and organisations.
Exploring our Solar System and unlocking the secrets of the Universe
Go to topicProtecting life and infrastructure on Earth and in orbit
Go to topicUsing space to benefit citizens and meet future challenges on Earth
Go to topicMaking space accessible and developing the technologies for the future
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This GIF is part of a longer animation showing different types of space debris objects and different debris sizes in orbit around Earth.
For debris objects bigger than 10 cm the data comes from the US Space Surveillance Catalogue.
The information about debris objects smaller than 10 cm is based on a statistical model from ESA.
Number of space debris objects in orbit:
> 1m: 5 400 objects
> 10 cm: 34 000 objects (among them are only 2 000 active satellites)
> 1cm: 900 000 objects
> 1mm: 130 000 000 objects