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Wherever we humans go, we leave behind a mess. That goes for space, too. 人类所到之处都是一片狼藉，太空也不例外。 Today, our species is responsible for more than 500,000 pieces of junk hurtling around Earth at phenomenal speeds, and if we don't start actively removing the largest pieces, the risk of collisions will only grow worse. 现在人类要为超过500,000个绕地球高速飞行的垃圾负责，如果我们再不积极行动起来清理大型垃圾，碰撞的危险只会越来越大。 "Imagine how dangerous sailing the high seas would be if all the ships ever lost in history were still drifting on top of the water," says Jan Wörner, European Space Agency (ESA) director general. 欧洲航天局（ESA）局长Jan Wörner说：“想象一下如果曾经失踪的所有船只都漂浮在水面上，在公海航行会有多危险。” "That is the current situation in orbit, and it cannot be allowed to continue." “目前轨道上就是这种情况，不能再任其继续发展了。” It's almost as if we need a tow truck to remove all the thousands of failed satellites from our orbit; incidentally, that's exactly what the ESA is working on. 就好像我们需要一辆拖车把成千上万颗失灵的卫星拖离轨道。顺便说一句，这正是欧洲航天局正在研究的。 By 2025, the agency plans on launching the world's first orbiting junk collector, a four-armed robot that tracks down space waste like Pac-Man in a maze. | 
