Space shuttle Atlantis flew home with a cosmic bullethole in its hull, Nasa revealed today.

The craft was hit by a meteor or fragment of space junk during its 12 days in orbit last month.

It blasted a hole, shown in the picture, in the half-inch thick aluminium, right payload door. But the crew of six were in no danger because the doors were folded inside the ship during re-entry, officials said.

The hole, a tenth of an inch across, was spotted when engineers examined Atlantis back at the Kennedy Space Centre, Florida. Nasa say they will be able to repair the damage before Atlantis is due to fly into space again in February. But the impact highlights the dangers of debris already in orbit around the Earth. Experts say humans are turning space into a cosmic junk yard.

A Nasa team is already monitoring 13,000 man-made objects bigger than four inches across. But there are millions of smaller fragments in orbit, travelling at more than 20,000mph, which could rip a hole in a spacecraft or knock a satellite out of action.
They include exploded rocket stages, lost hatches and tools, pieces of plastic – and even an astronaut’s glove.