Two 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?
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?
#12Two 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?
Apparently yes: https://abcnews.go.com/International/canadian-mans-lottery-w...
Re: Did Space Debris Hit A United Flight Over The Rockies Thursday?
#13Earlier 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?
Way less likely than the non-burned up remainder of some item from decades ago that was never specifically designed to burn up because "that's hard and it'll probably hit the ocean anyway"
It's hard to overstate just how much random junk is up there.
Re: Did Space Debris Hit A United Flight Over The Rockies Thursday?
#14> 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.
An annual 0.1% chance of one casualty (so: a passenger jet less than 1 in 1,000 years) doesn't become significantly more likely in two years. Also I assume the FAA actuaries would have forward projections of Starlink launches.
Maybe this is space shuttle math where real-world accidents tell us that the risk is significantly higher. But it'd be the first documented case of a meteor or space debris, so I'd guess it's still unlikely.
Re: Did Space Debris Hit A United Flight Over The Rockies Thursday?
#15> 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.
I sense an incoming report supporting the space hail theory.
Re: Did Space Debris Hit A United Flight Over The Rockies Thursday?
#16Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
cool yeah neat but you can contend with the reality that it does happen right? https://www.pcmag.com/news/spacex-actually-dying-starlink-sa...
Re: Did Space Debris Hit A United Flight Over The Rockies Thursday?
#17Two 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 light…
> it's much more likely that someone wins the lottery this week (~100% in fact) than that someone gets struck by lightning this week
No it isn’t? Not only are the individual odds of winning the lottery lower than the individual odds of being struck by lightning, but far more people are exposed to lightning on a weekly basis than participate in any given lottery.
Re: Did Space Debris Hit A United Flight Over The Rockies Thursday?
#18I have a paralyzing phobia of flying. I do, but It's always many hours of sheer terror. In my paranoia, I recently unlocked a new concern about air travel: what if a meteorite hits the plane? That would certainly be catastrophic. And now I've acquired a new one, space debris! Nice.
Re: Did Space Debris Hit A United Flight Over The Rockies Thursday?
#19When TWA Flight 800 went down over Long Island in 1996, there were at the time multiple witness statements of a "streak of light" which had been reported (and later discounted by the investigation) as a possible missile.
Although the odds are incredibly slim, I wondered around the time if it could have actually been a meteorite striking the aircraft, passing through the fuel tank and causing the explosion. Presumably it would have been moving very quickly, might have looked like a missile to an observer, and wouldn't have left any shrapnel debris/marks in the wreckage.
I would imagine that the space debris mentioned in the article would be a lot less dense and moving much more slowly (relatively speaking) than a meteorite at the impact with the aircraft.
Re: Did Space Debris Hit A United Flight Over The Rockies Thursday?
#20Two 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 light…
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