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by muzani 1045 days ago
3% seems much higher though. If I crossed the street at 3%, I probably would be dead by now. Cars may not be a great analogy, because they swerve, but it is quite high. Space is pretty damn big too so the odds are really low of being hit by space things. But unlike cars, space stuff tend to swerve towards the larger bodies.
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> But unlike cars, space stuff tend to swerve towards the larger bodies.

That's exactly it. And at the speeds these objects are going and the uncertainty of the observations you would have to be observing an object for a really long time to get the kind of accuracy required to pick a mitigation method that would work. And even then, assuming you could nail the point of impact of something going 2000 km / second of unknown mass in a strong gravity field: given the COVID response I have a hard time believing that the response to 'Houston, Texas is going to be obliterated on Jun 1st 2024' would be met with anything but skepticism and laughter. Right up to the moment of impact.