NASA's $690 million Fermi space telescope was nearly hit by the dead Russian spy satellite Cosmos 1805 on April 3, 2013. This NASA graphic depicts the orbital paths of the two spacecraft.NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

Artist's illustration of NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope.NASA

This NASA graphic depicts the amount of space junk currently orbiting Earth. The debris field is based on data from NASA's Orbital Debris Program Office. Image released on May 1, 2013.NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/JSC

A high-tech NASA telescope in orbit escaped a potentially disastrous collision with a Soviet-era Russian spy satellite last year in a close call that highlights the growing threat of orbital debris around Earth.

NASA's $690 million Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope which studies the most powerful explosions in the universe narrowly avoided a direct hit with the defunct 1.5-ton Russian reconnaissance satellite Cosmos 1805 on April 3, 2012, space agency officials announced Tuesday, April 30. The potential space collision was avoided when engineers commanded Fermi to fire its thrusters in a critical dodging maneuver to move out of harm's way.

- NASA's Fermi project scientist Julie McEnery

NASA created a video of Fermi's near miss with space junk to illustrate how high the risk of a space collision really was. [Space Junk Photos & Cleanup Concepts]

Fermi mission scientists first learned of the space collision threat on March 29, 2012 when they received a notice that the space telescope and Cosmos 1805 would miss each other by just 700 feet. The mission team monitored the situation over the next day and it became clear that the two spacecraft, traveling in different orbits, would zip through the same point in space within 30 milliseconds of one another, NASA officials said.

"My immediate reaction was, 'Whoa, this is different from anything we've seen before!'" NASA's Fermi project scientist Julie McEnery said in a statement.

The Russian space junk was travelling at a speed of 27,000 miles per hour in relation to Fermi. If it had smashed into the space telescope the explosion of the two spacecraft would have released "as much energy as two and a half tons of explosives," NASA officials said

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NASA, Russia Near Collision