A 4-inch piece of debris from the destroyed Chinese Fengyun 1C was seen to head towards the International Space Station prompting NASA's Mission Control to warn the Expedition 30 crew of a possible collision.

NASA said it will advise the ISS crew if they need to take shelter to avoid a potential encounter with the debris which can move about 22,000 feet per second when in orbit and collisions "with even a small piece of debris will involve considerable energy."

Among the precautionary measures that the Expedition 30 crew can make include closing hatches between station modules and getting into their Soyuz spacecraft about 30 minutes before the time of the closest approach of the space debris.

NASA said it is also a standard procedure to maneuver the space station out of the way of the predicted path of the debris to avoid such encounters as the object may come within 2,800 feet of the station.

According to NASA, there are about 19,000 objects larger than 4-inches and about 500,000 pieces of debris smaller than 4-inches known to be orbiting around earth.