Debris can travel at 18,000 mph, according to NASA. That's 10 times faster than the speed of a bullet, so even a tiny paint chip can rupture a spacesuit or damage delicate solar arrays and electronics on a satellite. Future and current missions can be at risk of debris strikes.

The environmental dangers of such space debris are myriad, including light pollution that would hinder future scientific discovery. Just as worrying are satellite re‑entries from the mega‑constellations, which could deposit hazardous levels of alumina into the upper atmosphere.

Since these pieces of debris — of which there are approximately 1 million pieces 1 cm and larger — travel several times faster than a bullet, a collision between the debris or with active satellites could be devastating, destroying entire missions or creating large new debris fields.