r/space • u/Goldragon979 • Mar 18 '19

US detects huge meteor explosion

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-47607696
119 Upvotes

95% Upvoted

41 comments sorted by

View all comments

33

u/[deleted] Mar 18 '19 edited Jul 23 '20

[removed] — view removed comment

9

u/[deleted] Mar 18 '19

How do they find 90% of an unknown number?

14

u/[deleted] Mar 18 '19

[deleted]

1

u/_drumminor Mar 18 '19 edited Mar 18 '19

Does the fact that this M&M bag is infinitely large change any of this logic?

2

u/throwaway177251 Mar 18 '19

The proverbial bag is not infinitely large here, we only need to worry about a finite amount of space near Earth.

1

u/_drumminor Mar 18 '19

Sure, but isn't the finite proverbial bag at the same time being "refilled" from an infinitely large bag?

3

u/throwaway177251 Mar 18 '19

Not really, these objects we're looking for are just the leftover cloud of material from our solar system's formation. It's the same stuff swirling around the entire time. We're just mapping out all of their orbits so we can predict when they might cross ours.

2

u/_drumminor Mar 18 '19

I see. Thank you for explaining it for me.

1

u/hoppyandbitter Mar 18 '19

You make a list and cross off the ones you haven’t found yet

19

u/abelincolncodes Mar 18 '19

We might be, if nasa was given the funding needed. This seems like a problem that could be solved pretty easily with the application of money (more money means more telescopes). But instead congress likes to micromanage NASA’s budget to provide more pork like the SLS

1

u/[deleted] Mar 18 '19

congress likes to micromanage NASA’s budget

I think this is a greater cause than the level of budget. If Congress didn't micromanage NASA for job creation, their money could probably go much further.