A growing cloud of space garbage may threaten future intergalactic travel. As much as it sounds like what you might read in a 1970s sci-fi novel (with appropriately air-brushed cover), it’s actually a tip off from the European Space Agency (ESA).

 According to the ESA, the ever-increasing halo of dead satellites and discarded spacecraft orbiting Earth could mean that it will soon be impossible to launch a rocket into space safely. Now the ESA has released a series of computer-generated images demonstrating the full extent of the so-called ‘space debris’, which now spin around the world at speeds in the tens of thousands of kilometres. 

Dr Heiner Klinkrad of the ESA has said that although research is being done into cleaning up the mess, most space debris will remain for a “long time” – but that (although it sounds scary), the main risk to off-world travellers remains the take-off and landing phases of the flight.