Astronauts take emergency shelter after junk threatens space station

Safety protocol put in place for only the fourth time in 16-year history of ISS as crew seeks protection from potentially lethal space debris

A piece of space junk threatened to crash into the international space station, forcing the three astronauts to seek emergency shelter.

For nearly an hour on Thursday, the American and two Russians hunkered down in their Soyuz capsule, which is docked to the space station, in case they had to make a quick getaway. The fragment from an old Russian weather satellite ended up passing harmlessly, about 1 miles (3kms) away.