The Joint Space Operations Center in California is currently tracking about 23,000 objects in orbit—including live satellites, derelict rocket parts, decommissioned spacecraft and wreckage.

As Earth orbit gets more crowded with a growing number of satellite constellations and rocket launches, it’s become more crucial to keep track of all these objects.

Changes in the apparent size can be explained by the orbit of the Moon around the Earth, which is not perfectly circular but elliptical (oval).

Still, even with the multitude of ways the U.S. Space Force and other organizations keep track of objects in Earth's orbit, recent events demonstrate how some can go unattributed.

DARC is designed to track multiple small moving objects in geosynchronous orbit — all around the globe, 24 hours a day.

Nearly 30,000 objects are hurtling through near-Earth orbit. That’s not just a problem for space (CNN) — Once upon a time, gazing at the night sky was an escape from manmade messiness on Earth.

The agency is tracking about 47,200 objects in orbit representing a 14 % increase since the end of 2021, and twice the amount in 2016.

This is one of those problems where you have a number of commercial and national actors who all get benefit from placing objects up in orbit, up in space.

Then there is the space junk — nearly 30,000 objects bigger than a softball hurtling a few hundred miles above Earth, ten times faster than a bullet.