* Astronomy

American spacecraft had to dodge space debris four times in 2008, NASA revealed Tuesday, a fact that highlights both the extent of the space junk problem and the primary mitigation option open to NASA.
By tracking pieces of debris larger than around four inches, space engineers can identify some dangerous space junk and meteoroids. If a satellite or spacecraft is in danger of getting hit, they simply move it out of harms way. The International Space Station, for example, had to make an evasive manoeuvre back in August 2008, to avoid a piece of an old Russian craft.

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Space sail could bring used rockets back to Earth
The risk to spacecraft from a collision with space debris could be reduced by equipping launchers with a gossamer-thin "sail". The idea is to deploy the sail after the rocket has released its payload to amplify the drag of the last vestiges of the atmosphere, and so force the rocket out of orbit.

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Wary of the multitude of satellites in earth's orbit, the European Space Agency has begun a program to monitor space debris and set up uniform standards to prevent future collisions far above the planet, an official said Monday.
The euro50 million program - dubbed Space Situational Awareness - aims to increase information for scientists on the ground about the estimated 13,000 satellites and other man-made bodies orbiting the planet, ESA space debris expert Jean-Francois Kaufeler told reporters.
The program was launched in January. On Feb. 10, the collision of two satellites generated space junk that could circle Earth and threaten other satellites for the next 10,000 years.

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Since the Space Age began, many thousands of pieces of debris -- fragments of spacecraft, components of rockets, and so forth -- have accumulated in orbit around Earth. Usually, this junk falls and burns up in the planet's atmosphere. Sometimes, however, large pieces crash to the ground, battered but intact. There is only one known instance of a person being hit by falling space junk, exactly five years ago.
Very early on the morning of January 22, 1997, Lottie Williams, a resident of Tulsa, Oklahoma, was walking for exercise in a park near her home. She saw a "big bright light, like a fire" in the sky.

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Lottie Williams of Tulsa, Oklahoma reported that she was struck on the shoulder while walking. The timing and location were consistent with debris from the Delta second stage reentry from which debris was recovered several hundred miles away in Texas.