Plot showing the increasing number of objects in space, from ESA's 2021 space environment report.
By every measure, the amount of debris in orbit is increasing – from the number of objects launched to their overall mass and the area they take up. A number of unidentified objects “UI” have also appeared in recent years. The objects are not necessarily new to space, but we are only recently able to observe them. Because of the time between their creation and our observation of them, it is difficult to track their origins to a specific “fragmentation event”.