The International Space Station had to shift its orbit this week to avoid an oncoming chunk of dangerous space debris. In an update, NASA said Tuesday's avoidance maneuver involved a Russian Progress cargo ship docked at the space station firing its thrusters at 2:09 p.

A Russian cargo ship docked at the space station fired its thrusters for five minutes Tuesday to move the ISS out of the way of an inbound object.

There are at least 19,000 pieces of space debris in Earth's orbit, not including active satellites, that the U.S is monitoring.

The debris came from a defense meteorological satellite that broke apart in 2015, according to a NASA statement. To avoid any risk of bumping up against the debris, the ISS conduc