Number of processes suddenly much higher

For some reason the number of processes on my server has nearly doubled over the weekend, and the entire server is noticeably slow as a result. What could have caused this to happen? It's a Dual Xeon 2.0 with 1Gb of RAM.

Code:
  2:19pm  up 19 days, 11 min,  1 user,  load average: 2.21, 2.13, 1.76
473 processes: 470 sleeping, 1 running, 2 zombie, 0 stopped
CPU0 states: 24.5% user, 34.3% system,  0.0% nice, 40.2% idle
CPU1 states: 36.3% user,  3.0% system,  0.0% nice, 60.2% idle
CPU2 states: 32.2% user,  3.2% system,  0.0% nice, 64.1% idle
CPU3 states: 29.1% user,  2.2% system,  0.0% nice, 68.2% idle
Mem:  1033780K av, 1020540K used,   13240K free,       0K shrd,    8496K buff
Swap: 2048276K av,  372584K used, 1675692K free                  256104K cached

  PID USER     PRI  NI  SIZE  RSS SHARE STAT %CPU %MEM   TIME COMMAND
11580 nobody     9   0 11436 9.8M  6548 S    19.5  0.9   0:12 httpd
25183 root      14   0  2128 2128  1628 R    15.8  0.2   0:42 top
26542 nobody     9   0 12016  10M  8956 S    11.6  1.0   3:09 httpd
18203 nobody    10   0 11788  10M  8236 S     7.9  0.9   0:45 httpd
21350 nobody     9   0 12388  10M  6816 S     7.0  1.0   0:15 httpd
25335 nobody     9   0 12692  10M  8076 S     6.9  1.0   3:18 httpd
 7822 nobody     9   0 12228  10M  7760 S     6.9  1.0   3:25 httpd
23426 nobody     9   0 12340  10M  7352 S     6.0  1.0   0:45 httpd
17231 nobody     9   0 11820  10M  7184 S     5.5  1.0   2:01 httpd
26189 nobody     9   0 12084  10M  7664 S     5.0  1.0   3:19 httpd
 3466 nobody     9   0 11468 9.8M  7180 S     4.7  0.9   0:35 httpd
25841 nobody     9   0 11608  10M  8548 S     4.7  0.9   0:25 httpd
19165 nobody     9   0 11600 9.9M  6740 S     4.3  0.9   0:10 httpd
11275 nobody     9   0 11752  10M  8100 S     3.7  1.0   1:28 httpd
19305 nobody     9   0 11740  10M  6828 S     3.0  0.9   0:30 httpd
19924 nobody     9   0 11644   9M  7264 S     3.0  0.9   0:22 httpd
23447 nobody     9   0  8284 6760  5948 S     2.8  0.6   0:00 httpd
20325 nobody     9   0 11728  10M  8724 S     2.5  0.9   1:35 httpd
16400 nobody     9   0 11728  10M  7096 S     2.3  0.9   1:51 httpd
20332 nobody     9   0 11724 9.8M  9928 S     2.3  0.9   1:17 httpd
16255 nobody     9   0 12364  10M  8868 S     1.8  1.0   2:00 httpd
13005 nobody     9   0 12068  10M  7328 S     1.8  1.0   1:42 httpd
24608 mysql      9   0  169M  71M 53640 S     1.5  7.1   0:16 mysqld
 9825 mysql      9   0  169M  71M 53640 S     1.3  7.1   0:14 mysqld
12272 nobody     9   0 11720  10M  7076 S     1.3  0.9   1:29 httpd
12658 nobody     9   0 11864  10M  7112 S     1.1  1.0   0:11 httpd
26815 mysql      9   0  169M  71M 53636 S     1.0  7.1   0:14 mysqld
11922 nobody     9   0 11632 9.9M  7940 S     1.0  0.9   1:28 httpd
29634 nobody     9   0 11512 9.9M  9972 S     1.0  0.9   0:21 httpd
 5761 nobody     9   0 11760 9064  7112 S     1.0  0.8   0:14 httpd
17578 nobody     9   0 12720  10M  7480 S     0.8  1.0   2:08 httpd
19506 nobody     9   0 12072  10M  7080 S     0.8  1.0   2:07 httpd
 5605 nobody    11   0 11788  10M  7108 S     0.8  1.0   1:59 httpd
24795 mysql      9   0  169M  71M 53640 S     0.8  7.1   0:02 mysqld
21366 nobody     9   0 11888  10M  7168 S     0.8  1.0   1:39 httpd
10259 nobody    10   0 11748 9.9M  8128 S     0.8  0.9   1:31 httpd
 4994 nobody     9   0 11924  10M  7356 S     0.8  1.0   0:57 httpd
16923 nobody     9   0 11588 9.9M  8108 S     0.8  0.9   0:34 httpd
16580 mysql      9   0  169M  71M 53640 S     0.6  7.1   0:15 mysqld

 

 

 

 

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