The International Space Station had to move to dodge space junk

The International Space Station had to fire its thrusters to stay out of the way of space junk.

NASA said the station fired its thrusters for 5 minutes and 5 seconds in order to avoid debris. It will be increased its distance from a piece of the Russian satellite.

The maneuver increased the altitude of the International Space Station by between 0.2 and 0.8 miles. The space station would have been close to the debris without the move.

There was a fragment from a satellite. 1,500 pieces of debris were created when it was destroyed by Russia. Hundreds of thousands of pieces of debris will be created by the anti-satellite missile test.

There are millions of pieces of debris circling Earth, most of which originate from satellite explosions and collision. Smaller pieces of debris can be created by objects colliding.

There are pieces larger than 100 million, objects between 1 cm and 10 cm in diameter, and 25,000 pieces of debris larger than 10 cm.

Space junk can threaten weather forecasting and GPS

Satellites provide services such as weather forecasting andGPS because of space junk.

According to the director of the Space Law, Data and Policy program at the University of Washington, the United States is the most space dependent power around. It does affect the civilian, commercial and military capabilities of the U.S., relative to other powers.

The speeds at which objects are traveling in the sky can be dangerous. The average impact speed is around 22,000 mph.

Within a few years, most of the debris will fall back to Earth. It will take hundreds or thousands of years for it to come down if it is circling at 500 miles or more out.

The International Space Station gets out of the way of debris once a year. NASA says critical parts of the station can hold up to 1 cm of impact. The size of the fragment was not specified by the agency.

The U.S., Russia, China, Japan, France and the European Space Agency all have guidelines on how to manage and prevent space debris. Design and operation of new spaceships in a way that doesn't make the problem worse is one of them. New technologies are being tried to remove debris.