International Space Station hit by Debris

Management of space debris has become a challenge for the human race recently. The launch of spacecraft for various scientific researches has resulted in the build up of an enormous quantity of debris to be formed in the space.

A small debris has collided with an International Space Station and hit it's robotic arm. As reported by the Canadian Space Agency, The robotic arm of the space station has been damaged and is clearly visible.

The incident happened in space when the level of debris is highly increasing. The US space agency, NASA said "27,000 pieces of debris are being monitored in space. Even after so much monitoring, there are still many such pieces floating in space, whicha are not being monitored due to their small size, but they can threaten human flights and robotic missions."

What is space debris?

"Space debris encompasses both natural meteoroid and artificial (human - made) orbital debris", stated by NASA in a recent study.

Natural debris consists of asteroids, comets and meteorites. Whereas, artificial or man made debris consists of the fragments that keep revolving in the Earth's orbit due to gravity after the launched spacecraft and satellites become inactive.

NASA on space debris

In a recent study it has been quoted by NASA that "The rising population of space debris increases the potential danger to all space vehicles, including to the International Space Station and other spacecraft with humans aboard, such as SpaceX's Crew Dragon".