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As of July 1, 1987, there were some 7000 pieces of space debris, each at least 10 centimeters in diameter, circling the globe in semi permanent or permanent orbit. Among these were operating and dead satellites, fragments of exploded rocket engines, garbage bags and frozen sewage dumped by astronauts, shrapnel from antisatellite weapons tests, 34 nuclear reactors and their fuel cores.
The volume of debris has been doubling about every five years.