[gjem97]

It's a bit surprising to me that it's not made more clear that the individual pieces of debris are not to scale. That is, just glancing at the visualization (especially the early ones in the presentation that focus on low Earth orbit) would lead the viewer to believe that space is much more crowded than it actually is. This in turn would make the viewer believe that collisions are much more likely than they actually are.

[stugrey]

Unfortunately, to show the Earth and the orbital positions to scale, it was not possible to show the pieces of debris to scale.

[neffy]

Yes, sorry. The not-to-scale aspect meant it jumped the shark almost immediately for me as well. As small as possible, following the initial display of the object, might have conveyed the idea better - and that would have made the Chinese explosion a little more fun.

[DanBC]

But see also the NASA visualisation on the NASA orbital debris site: http://orbitaldebris.jsc.nasa.gov/

[gjem97]

I understand the technical limitations, but it appears that you have an axe to grind: sounding the alarm about space debris. In that context it seems disingenuous to show space as more crowded than it is.