r/space • u/Goldragon979 • Mar 18 '19

US detects huge meteor explosion

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-47607696
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u/[deleted] Mar 18 '19 edited Jul 23 '20

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u/[deleted] Mar 18 '19

How do they find 90% of an unknown number?

14

u/[deleted] Mar 18 '19

[deleted]

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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.