I know what you mean
But the probability of a given individual being hit is more like 1-in-20,000,000,000,000 - or bloody unlucky, as we actuaries like to put it.
Small fiery pieces of what was once a climate-monitoring satellite will hurtle towards the Earth's surface this Friday. Unless you live in Greenland, Siberia or Antarctica, watch out for dazzling lights in the sky as red-hot lumps of NASA-grade aluminium descend upon our planet. The space agency predicts that the debris from …
This is all an abuse of statistics.
Now, I'm no maths genius, so please correct the glaring ommisions here.
As pointed out above, the 1 in XX chance of hitting someone means that the essential algorithm is reversed.
ie, if you were to transpose yourself from the lottery example into the satellite example, you would not be a person on the earth, you would be the satellite.
Calculating how likely it is to hit me is beyond my number crunching skills (I'm more of a logic cruncher).
However to take the lottery as a comparison.
There is 1 draw per week, with very long odds. However, _millions_ of people enter, so there is regularly a winner. If millions of satellites were to enter the atmosphere every week, then in all likelihood, someone would be hit each week.
By the same reasoning, if only a single person (and no one else) were to buy a ticket this week, then they would be less likely to win the lottery than be hit by this satellite (according to the above numbers that I can't confirm)
This is how you'd make the two equivalent. Essentially, a single, given lottery ticket winning is the valid thing to compare to a single satellite, not the entire lottery.
You see the results of this in the satellite odds themselves. The 1 in 3200 is the total system involved. The odds to hit someone, anyone. If you were to calculate what the odds were for someone, anyone, to win the lottery. I'd fully expect that they'd be in the same order as these. Maybe a bit lower, given that there is generally a winner each week or two.
Here ends the lesson, corrections sent to my good friend, Mr Don Kiddick or his special friend, Ben Dover.
@Josco - I believe there is a 1 in 54 chance that you will win something on the lottery if you enter a single line, but there is a 1 in 21 trillion chance that you will be hit by the satellite. While I accept that 1 in a million chances come up nine times out of ten I can't see that 1 in 21 trillion is more likely than 1 in 54. Maybe it's because your calculator won't go up to 21 trillion that you can't do a simple probability calculation like that.
No there isn't a 1 in 3,200 chance I'll be hit by fiery chunks of satellite, there's a 1 in 3,200 chance that some body on the planet will be hit by a piece of satellite which means the the chance of me being hit is 1 in 3,200 x the number of people on the planet, which is about 7 billion.
So I personally have a 1 in 22400 billion chance of being hit by a piece of satellite which is pretty slim....
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1-in-3,200 chance of hitting a person? Really.
Presumably that would mean, on average, the area of the Earth it could hit is 1/3200th covered in humans? I'm a bit sceptical of the maths on that one.
1-in-3,200 chance of hitting a human, or something-made-by humans (house, road etc.) sounds more reasonable perhaps.
You have to remember that Americans are mostly obese and therefore cover a much greater proportion of the ground than other people, thus making it much harder for the flaming lumps of satellite to sneak between the bellies and bingo wings to actually hit the ground...
"The smouldering lump will remain the property of the United States and must be turned over to local police." - So I guess they will also have to admit liability for any damage/injury sustained. I hope it hits my car. I've always wanted a Lamborghini.
Funny that, they confiscate my bottle of water and razor blades on planes, on much much smaller odds!
Also, "remain the property of the United States" hey good luck with that if it lands on _my_ lawn. I wonder if they make Afghan civilians bring the bullets back to the local police. Surely they remain the property of the USA, too? An interesting question springs to mind: if the debris remain the property of the USA, do they accept full criminal liability for the damage (and/or casualties)?
and to back up the claim to keep possession of said lump of ex-satellite.....
surely the plan to burn it up in the atmosphere to dispose of it is like throwing something in the bin because you have no use for it and dont want it.., but wanting it back because somebody else does?
windows user icon because it looks like Albert Steptoe
The exact time the satellite begins its reentry depends on many factors, but mostly the density of the atmosphere where it is orbiting. Because of heating from solar radiation the atmosphere's density changes over periods of hours and days which can dramatically change the amount of drag being experienced by the satellite.
Added to which this satellite has probably lost all attitude control so it will be tumbling and experiencing variable amounts of drag, all of which make predictions a bit less - well - predictable.
An asteroid on the other hand approaches the Earth through a vacuum at a relative speed of several to tens of kilometres per second following the laws of Mr. Newton. The atmosphere only has any effect on it during the last few seconds before it carves out a dent on the surface.
... and if you want to track it, heavens-above.com have a nice, real-time view of who's under the flight path.
The irony is that if it does actually come down on top of some unfortunate person, they will be one of the few, verifiable, casualties of climate change. Though not from its earthly effects, but our efforts to do something about it.
I can just see that at my local cop-shop:
"'Allo, 'allo. What's this, then?"
"It's a small piece of downed satellite."
"Look, I'm busy drinking tea and doing the Sun crossword. Do you know the penalty for wasting Police time?"
"But, sir. We're supposed to hand these bits in for you."
"Really? Who told you that, then?"
"NASA."
"Oh yeah? And I'm bleedin' Sherlock 'Olmes! Go on, get out you bleedin' idiot!"
At which point NASA send round the big, black limos to 'take care of you' for not returning their smouldering lumps of space crap.
Still, the light show should be good.......
...that cooked on plasma as if fell may have become radioactive while flying outside earth atmosphere, or contaminated with radioactive dust by any means. I wouldn't touch it, and possibly cover it with a lead box, until the MIB pick it up. Only a geiger counter in hand would ensure it is even safe to get near it.
would disagree with the property claim by NASA, backed up by the gov of the US of A. But then, again... Iranian ebay perhaps?
And the North Koreans wouldn't mind wagging the dog, I'm sure. And then think of the Russians, the Chinese, they do sit on a bit of an estate and their asking price might not be worth making too much noise about NASA property claim...