China plans to use lasers to clean space junk from Earth's orbit

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China has come up with a new plan to rid the earth of its space garbage, using giant lasers.

Wired reports that Earth's orbit is currently cluttered with fragments from old satellites and rocket stages, called space debris, which number at least 20,000.

Satellites and spacecrafts are frequently at risk of colliding with the fragments and being damaged by even small, pebble-sized pieces.

To address this problem, Chinese researchers from the Air Force Engineering University in Xi'an have proposed a plan to launch a satellite-mounted laser that will emit short bursts of infrared light to target small debris.

The laser will break down the space debris into tiny, harmless particles, and hopefully rid the Earth of its space junk.

The plan sounds reasonable enough, but of course, with China, there's no telling if the space laser will actually be for cleaning, or be used as a tool for world domination.

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