See All The Satellites And Space Junk Circling Earth In Real-Time

From down here on the ground, space looks like a pristine void. But Earth's orbit is actually crowded with a ton of stuff, from human-made satellites to many smaller pieces of debris whirling around at dangerously high speeds, as the film Gravity so memorably dramatized. In fact, there are an estimated 500,000 or so smaller orbital debris (between one and 10 centimeters in diameter) and about 21,000 larger bits (larger than 10 centimeters) spinning around Earth right now, according to NASA's Orbital Debris Program Office.

And now you can see all but the smallest bits moving around us right now thanks to "Stuff In Space," a mesmerizing new website designed by young programmer James Yoder, which tracks the paths of hundreds of thousands of orbital objects in realtime. "The website displays anything currently trackable -- low-earth orbit, geosynchronous, and anything else there is," Yoder tells Popular Science in an email, referring to satellites that are far enough away to orbit the Earth once every day (geosynchronous) or closer and orbit more rapidly (low-earth orbit).

Load up the Stuff In Space site (Safari and Firefox browsers work best, Chrome often leaves some debris out on Macs) and you're immediately presented with a slowly spinning globe (which accurately displays day and night) surrounded by various color-coded dots representing satellites (red), debris (gray), and discarded rocket bodies (blue).

As you glide your mouse across the screen, the orbits of satellites and large debris are highlighted as blue lines and their names or designations displayed in text. You can also hover over the "Groups" section to see views of some of the largest collections of related objects, such as America's network of GPS satellites, Russia's rival positioning system GLONASS, and the debris of the accidental 2009 collision between a Russian military satellite and American communications satellite (Iridium 33 and Kosmos 2251). There's even a search function, if you happen to have a particular satellite name in mind (Polar Bear, anyone?)

Read more at:https://www.popsci.com/now-you-can-see-all-space-junk-floating-around-earth-real-time#page-2