At speeds of tens of thousands of miles per hour, even the tiniest pieces can carry the energy as a bullet. Fortunately, the three astronauts have now made it back down to Earth in one piece. In the meantime, spacecraft, including the International Space Station, have to frequently fire their thrusters to ensure they don’t suffer the same fate as the Shenzhou-20 spacecraft. “In 2007, China blew up a defunct Fengyun-1c weather satellite to test an anti-satellite weapon,” he wrote. “It generated the most space debris in history — over 3,000 pieces are still orbiting today.”More on the incident: Chinese Astronauts Stuck in Space After Suspected Damage to Return Craft