European Space Agency

The first ever video and images of the Sun's south pole have been sent back to Earth by the European Space Agency's Solar Orbiter spacecraft.

Also under threat are two collaborations with the European Space Agency: An ambitious plan to bring martian rocks collected by Nasa's Perseverance Rover back to Earth and a mission to send Europe's Rosalind Franklin Rover to the red planet to search for signs of past life.

"It's much more likely that you win the lottery than that you get impacted by this piece of space debris." said Mr Stijn Lemmens, Senior Space Debris Mitigation Analyst at the European Space Agency.

The Biomass satellite, from the European Space Agency, will "weigh" the Earth's forests, revealing how much planet-warming carbon is being stored within trees and therefore kept out of the atmosphere.

Though there are currently no removal efforts active in orbit, the European Space Agency has plans to launch its first clean-up mission, called ClearSpace-1, in 2028.