Space Junk swirling around Earth Orbit.

Not only our atmosphere and oceans are being polluted by billions of pieces of junk.

As these computer-generated images show, Mankind's seemingly insatiable desire to litter has now extended out into space, with potentially devastating results.

Rocket scientists call it 'orbital debris'; everyone else calls it space junk. And it is becoming a probleme put our first object into space just 51 years ago - Sputnik One.

But in just half a century we have created a swarm of perhaps tens of millions of items of debris, all circling around the planet - rubbish through which the 600-odd operating satellites, one space station, one space telescope, an occasional space shuttle, interplanetary probe and Soyuz rockets have to negotiate a safe passage.

As the images show, these form distinct rings and spheres around Earth.

Most hug close to the surface, 200-300 miles up in low-earth-orbit, where they pose a potentially deadly hazard to astronauts and their spacecraft before they burn up in the atmosphere, usually a few months later.