There is growing alarm at the amount of debris spinning round the planet at 18,000mph and a collision with critical satellites could bring down everyday services, including telecommunications and GPS navigation.
Vocabulary:
- garbage - waste material or unwanted things that you throw away.
- heavens - the sky.
- fund - an amount of money saved, collected, or provided for a particular purpose.
- grab - to take hold of something or someone suddenly and roughly.
- defunct - no longer working correctly.
- drag - to move something by pulling it along a surface.
- junk - things that are considered to be of no use or value, or of low quality.
- bullet - a small, metal object that is shot from a gun.
- fleck - a small mark or spot.
- chip - to break a small piece off something by accident.
- swerve - to change direction.
- tumbling - to fall quickly and without control.
- ground control - the personnel and equipment that monitor and direct the flight and landing of aircraft or spacecraft.
- brittle - delicate and easily broken.
- liftoff - the moment when a space vehicle leaves the ground.
Source: Sky News