An former   Russian motor   has irrupt in celestial orbit , creating a further 16 shard of   potentially hazardous debris .

The   Russian SOZ ullage motor ( also fuck as ullage rockets ) was   put into orbit 15 years ago , when the   GLONASS satellite were launched in 2007 . The motor are used to   help promote payloads   – in this case , a Russian satellite navigation system   – into their required range . In Zero - G , fuel can float away from where it is require , especially after a foxiness reduce acceleration . It is the job of the ullage motors to lightly speed up the whole space vehicle , pushing propellant back into position within the tanks ready for the independent locomotive engine to re-start in orbit . Without it , probes or spacecraft could become strand , as the fuel floats out from where it is demand .

However useful they are , they are n’t without their problems .

" The SOZ motors do n’t use up all their propellent when they provoke . And they have an inauspicious tendency to go bang long time or decades later , leaving a bunch of debris in highly elliptical orbit , " Jonathan McDowell of the Harvard - Smithsonian Center for Astrophysicswrote on Twitter . " At least 54 SOZ motors have now exploded . "

The latest explosion , announced by   the U.S. Space Force ’s 18th Space Defense Squadronon Twitteron Tuesday , saw the rocket go against up into at least 16 musical composition , which are now being get across . This particular motor will likely reenter the Earth ’s atmosphere , though it could take years or even decades .

" 173 rubble objects from those explosion are currently being tracked , but the true number is probably a lot higher because trailing is less complete for high orbits,“McDowell added .

Space , it ’s bonny to say , is getting prettycrowded with junk . One vexation about dust is that it could cause the " Kessler Effect "   ( orKessler Syndrome ) . Simply put , the Kessler Effect is where a undivided event ( such as an explosion of a artificial satellite ) in low - Earth scope creates a string chemical reaction , as dust destroys other orbiter in orbit . Should this happen , the debris could keep colliding with other satellite or other rubble , potentially causing communication problems and leaving areas of infinite inaccessible to ballistic capsule . Essentially , it could end up like the filmGravity , but with less George Clooney and more " hey what occur to my GPS " . At worst , some speculate it could fundamentally trap us here on Earth , ineffective to leave .