Think of the Earth from space and your mind probably conjures up those serene pictures taken from the moon by Apollo astronauts of our blue planet hanging alone in the inky blackness of space. You probably wouldn't think of a junkyard. Unfortunately, the latter is not so far from the truth.

There are millions of pieces of rubbish circling the Earth, everything from dead spacecraft to stray nuts and bolts to flecks of paint. Estimates by Nasa and others suggest that there are at least 18,000 pieces of man-made debris at least 10cm wide hurtling around the Earth – a figure rapidly escalating – as well as an untold number smaller than that. All of it orbits at more than 18,000mph, meaning even the tiniest chunk of junk can tear through a space suit or puncture the hull of the International Space Station or the space shuttle. Not to mention the damage such an object might do to military or commercial satellites.

This is why the US military wants to get rid of these floating menaces. With a big net.

Plans for something called the Electrodynamic Debris Eliminator (Edde) have just been revealed by a company called Star Inc, with funding from the US Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency. This is a 100kg spacecraft with 200 nets attached, which can scoop up dead satellites or other stray junk. The craft can then guide the junk into a safe orbit around the Earth or else direct it to glide safely into the middle of the ocean.

According to its designers, a dozen of these craft will take only seven years to remove all 2,465 identified objects over 2kg floating in low-earth orbit. The US military is interested, and Star Inc expects a test flight in 2013. Scientists have also considered using ground-based lasers to zap junk so that it re-enters the atmosphere, and robot missions that could dock with dead satellites to kick them into "graveyard" orbits.

If such plans work, it might not be long before that Apollo-eye view of the fragile Earth becomes real once more.