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The earthquake and tsunami that struck Japan last March created an estimated 25 million tons of debris, large amounts of which washed into the ocean. Soon after the disaster, satellites photographed and tracked large mats of wreckage--building parts, boats and household objects--floating off the Japanese coast

Since the space age began, the orbital realm has become increasingly littered with the detritus of skyward human striving--spent rocket boosters, dead satellites, stray pieces of hardware. Debris is piling up with such speed that it has become a threat to the kind of spacefaring endeavors that spawned it in the first place. A September report by the National Research Council found that the debris field is so dense that collisions between objects in orbit will create additional debris faster than space junk falls out of orbit.