Did Space Debris Hit A United Flight Over The Rockies Thursday?
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Did Space Debris Hit A United Flight Over The Rockies Thursday?
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Re: Did Space Debris Hit A United Flight Over The Rockies Thursday?
#2Re: Did Space Debris Hit A United Flight Over The Rockies Thursday?
#3Interesting! There are ~2 starlink satellites re-entering the atmosphere _every day_ now - and this is only set to increase. I wonder if this was caused by starlink debris?
Re: Did Space Debris Hit A United Flight Over The Rockies Thursday?
#4Interesting! There are ~2 starlink satellites re-entering the atmosphere _every day_ now - and this is only set to increase. I wonder if this was caused by starlink debris?
The starlink satellites are designed to burn up in the atmosphere. They do this pretty often. But there's plenty of other space junk that's not designed to burn up and should have shown up on radar.
Re: Did Space Debris Hit A United Flight Over The Rockies Thursday?
#5Two events each having a low probability is not the same thing as the events not happening. Despite our best efforts, folks still win the lottery, and you’re more likely to get struck by lightning than win the powerball jackpot.
So while it can be extremely unlikely from a probability standpoint that this plane was stuck by space debris, and it can also be extremely unlikely that he saw it before it hit, it’s not a false statement just because the probability says it’s unlikely.
And of course, despite probability, folks still get struck by lightning.
Re: Did Space Debris Hit A United Flight Over The Rockies Thursday?
#6> So what’s the risk of space debris to aviation? An FAA report from 2023 estimated an annual 0.1% chance that falling space debris would cause a single global aviation casualty. That meant individual passenger risk was less than a trillion‑to‑one though projected to increase.
I wonder if a report done in October 2025 would give a different estimate, considering we have a lot more stuff in space now compared to 2023.
Re: Did Space Debris Hit A United Flight Over The Rockies Thursday?
#7Interesting! There are ~2 starlink satellites re-entering the atmosphere _every day_ now - and this is only set to increase. I wonder if this was caused by starlink debris?
The starlink satellites are designed to burn up in the atmosphere. They do this pretty often. But there's plenty of other space junk that's not designed to burn up and should have shown up on radar.
And the Titanic was designed to not sink, sometimes reality is harsh. What is the probability for any of the parts of a starlink satallite to survive a descent?
Re: Did Space Debris Hit A United Flight Over The Rockies Thursday?
#8Earlier quoted context omitted.
The starlink satellites are designed to burn up in the atmosphere. They do this pretty often. But there's plenty of other space junk that's not designed to burn up and should have shown up on radar.
And the Titanic was designed to not sink, sometimes reality is harsh. What is the probability for any of the parts of a starlink satallite to survive a descent?
Boy, you just really wish you could blame this on Starlink.
Re: Did Space Debris Hit A United Flight Over The Rockies Thursday?
#9Two events each having a low probability is not the same thing as the events not happening. Despite our best efforts, folks still win the lottery, and you’re more likely to get struck by lightning than win the powerball jackpot. So while it can be extremely unlikely from a probability standpoint that this plane was stuck by space debris, and it can also be extremely unlikely that he saw it before it hit, it’s not a f…
> folks still win the lottery, and you’re more likely to get struck by lightning than win the powerball jackpot
I'm more likely to get struck by lightning than win the lottery, sure. But it's much more likely that someone wins the lottery this week (~100% in fact) than that someone gets struck by lightning this week.
Edit: my point about independence of events still stands, but it turns out people get struck by lightning amazingly often. The chance of someone in the world getting struck by lightning this week seems to be about 99%!
Re: Did Space Debris Hit A United Flight Over The Rockies Thursday?
#10Two events each having a low probability is not the same thing as the events not happening. Despite our best efforts, folks still win the lottery, and you’re more likely to get struck by lightning than win the powerball jackpot. So while it can be extremely unlikely from a probability standpoint that this plane was stuck by space debris, and it can also be extremely unlikely that he saw it before it hit, it’s not a f…
Do lottery winners get struck by lightning?