TORONTO -- Scientists around the world are working on different ways to solve an increasingly worrisome problem: space junk.

Among that junk is derelict satellites that orbit the Earth without any function, along with an estimated 934,000 pieces of debris, each larger than one centimetre, that are currently circling the Earth at rapid speeds, according to the European Space Agency (ESA).

This debris poses a risk to astronauts and active satellites alike. Astronauts have had to move the International Space Station 25 times between 1999 and 2018 due to incoming debris and completed the manoeuvre as recently as late September. 

In 2009, two Russian communications satellites -- one active and the other derelict -- collided at 11,700 metres per second, creating more than 2,000 pieces of large debris in the orbit.

For astronomers like Paul Delaney, a professor at York University, pollution in the orbit around us is becoming eerily similar to the pollution on Earth.

"Let's not make the problem any worse,” he told CTV News. “Let's learn from what we've done to the oceans and not do the same in space, please."

To try to fix the problem, the European Space Agency announced last month that it entered into a contract for the 2025 launch of ClearSpace-1, a kind of space claw capable of grabbing a piece of space junk the size of a washing machine and bringing it back into the atmosphere, where both the junk and the device will burn up upon arrival.

"As space is now an infrastructure, we have to keep our infrastructure clean," said Jan Woerner, ESA director general.

There are also proposals to use a giant net to grab the junk, but time is of the essence, as companies such as SpaceX intend on launching thousands of other satellites into orbit in the foreseeable future.

Meanwhile, a Canadian company also wants in on the action. NorthStar, based of Montreal, wants to develop a dozen satellites to monitor and issue warnings when there’s a risk of collision from space junk.

"The biggest challenges facing humanity (is) how are we interacting with our environment? And space is an environment,” said NorthStar CEO and Co-founder Stewart Bain.