AFTER polluting our own planet we are now venturing further afield. Since the dawn of creation, space has remained unpolluted - that is, until 40 years ago. Now, there is all kinds of junk out there, discarded by humans.

This includes space probes which have reached the end of their lifespan. Even human waste fluids were ejected in the early days of space exploration.

All this is travelling around the cosmos at 17,000 miles an hour.

If there are aliens out there (which I doubt very much) they are going to be very reluctant to shake us by the hand, given our track record on space hygiene.

F BILLINGTON (Mr), East Crescent, Accrington.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.