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Now the final frontier has turned into a rather messy one.  

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New computer-generated images show planet Earth as you've never seen before.

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Yeah, and if you like people who tidy up after themselves, this might disturb you.  

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Now what we're discovering is that the Earth is surrounded by orbiting space junk.  

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Jackie Kabler reports on how the galactic junkyard may pose a threat now, even to those who are trying to explore space.

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This extraordinary image proves it's not just our streets and our oceans that are polluted with litter.  

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There are more than 12,000 pieces of space junk known to be circling the planet, 

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and probably tens of thousands more bits too small for scientists to track.

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Frozen rocket fuel, dead satellites, human waste from manned spacecraft -- they're all circling around up there.

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With things like rocket parts and literally screws and in some cases bolts, perhaps even tools that astronauts have dropped, a whole range of things,  

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and it's a massive issue, simply because there is so much of it.

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The biggest space litter lout is China.  

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When it destroyed its aging weather satellite, there was suddenly more than 150,000 extra pieces of space junk orbiting the earth.  

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It all poses little risk to us down here. Anything coming close will be burned up in the atmosphere.  

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But for those who venture into space it's a different story.  

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Look at this damage on space shuttle Endeavor caused by space debris.

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If a spacecraft is hit by a piece of debris, the closing impact can be about 52,000 kilometers an hour in some cases, 

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and that's moving pretty fast, and it will destroy anything in its path.

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Only professional astronomers with telescopes much larger than this one can actually see all that space junk.  

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Now one of the most unusual things ever seen up there was back in the '60s after the first U.S. space walk when an astronaut dropped a glove.  

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That glove went on to be the most dangerous garment in history, 

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hurtling around the earth at over 17,000 miles an hour for several months until it finally burnt up.

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So far, there's been no serious damage caused by space junk, but it's probably only a matter of time.