High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Space debris, also known as orbital debris, space junk and space waste, are objects in orbit around Earth that were created by humans but no longer serve any useful purpose. These objects consist of everything from spent rocket stages and defunct satellites to explosion and collision fragments. The debris can include slag and dust from solid rocket motors, surface degradation products such as paint flakes, coolant released by RORSAT nuclear powered satellites, clusters of small needles, and objects released due to the impact of micrometeoroids or small debris onto spacecraft. As the orbits of these objects often overlap the trajectories of spacecraft, debris is a potential collision risk.