Earth could have its own Saturn-like band due to to growing threat of 'space junk,' professor warns

Of the hundreds of millions of pieces of debris floating in space, a significant portion could wind up forming a'ring' around the Earth, similar to the solar system's gas giants, a University of Utah professor has warned. The debris is likely to give Earth'its own rings' made of'space junk,' University of Utah researcher Jake Abbott said in a recent interview with the Salt Lake Tribune. However, Abbott and his team are working on a way to clean up the debris, putting a magnet posted at the end of a robotic arm and using the magnet's eddy currents to collect the space trash. NASA estimates there are at least 23,000 pieces of debris that enter low-Earth orbit (LEO) larger than a softball in orbit, but there are probably 500,000 pieces between 0.4 inches and four inches. It's possible there are 170 million pieces of space debris that are smaller than 0.4 inches, the European Space Agency added.