Space has become a trash heap.

According to NASA, there are more than 27,000 pieces of spacedebris bigger than the size of a softball currently orbiting Earth, and they are traveling at speeds of up to 17,500 mph, fast enough for a small chunk to damage a satellite or spacecraft like an intergalactic cannonball.

Consequently, cleaning up this space junk will be an important task if agencies are to shoot more rockets and satellites into orbit.

From Mercury to the depths of the distant Kuiper Belt, there aren't many unexplored corners of the solar system out there. One class of object, however, remains to be visited: the transitional Centaurs out beyond the orbit of Jupiter. Now, a new study from the University of Chicago recently accepted in The Planetary Science Journal looks at the feasibility of sending a mission by mid-century to intercept, follow and watch a Centaur asteroid as it evolves into a mature inner solar system comet.

It's a major mystery for planetary astronomy: how do comets get trapped in short-period path (that is, a comet with an orbital period of less than 200 years) in the inner solar system? Jupiter plays a major role in this regard, deflecting incoming debris both into and out of the solar system.

The CSIRO's 64-meter Parkes Radio Telescope was commissioned on October 31 1961. At the time it was the most advanced radio telescope in the world, incorporating many innovative features that have since become standard in all large-dish antennas.

Through its early discoveries it quickly became the leading instrument of its kind. Today, 60 years later, it is still arguably the finest single-dish radiotelescope in the world. It is still performing world-class science and making discoveries that shape our understanding of the Universe.

The telescope's origins date back to wartime radar research by the Radiophysics Laboratory, part of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), the forerunner of the CSIRO. On the Sydney clifftops at Dover Heights, the laboratory developed radar for use in the Pacific theater. When the second world war ended, the technology was redirected into peaceful applications, including studying radio waves from the Sun and beyond.

In 1946, British physicist Edward "Taffy" Bowen was appointed chief of the Radiophysics Laboratory. He had been one of the brilliant engineers, dubbed "boffins," who developed radar as part of Britain's secret prewar military research.