ISS moved to evade space garbage

International Space Station (ISS) yesterday moved to avoid junk from an old artificial satellite.

On January 12, the US Space Agency (NASA) announced a piece of trash from Iridium, a US private telecommunications satellite, flying close to ISS last afternoon. The distance between it and the ISS is about 1,600m.

NASA asked astronauts on the ISS to activate the engines for a short time yesterday to avoid a piece of trash falling from an inactive satellite, the AP reported.

This is the 13th time ISS has to move to avoid cosmic garbage since 1998. Space garbage moves at great speed so they can cause holes if they hit ISS.

The most recent shift of ISS occurred in September last year. In June the astronauts had to evacuate to Soyuz's escape compartment when space junk flew near ISS.