Okay so the data they offer is that the satellites are, on average, making one orbital correction per month to avoid any possible trajectory with a greater than 1 in 100,000 chance of a collision. Those satellites are around LEO, which corresponds to a mean velocity of ~17,000 mph. So they're claiming that making one course adjustment per month, traveling at 17,000 mph, to avoid a 1 in 100,000 chance of a collision, is "Like swerving on a highway every 10 meters" in big bold font? I remember there's a reason I removed space.com from my space bookmarks.
Thank you for putting this into perspective! It's a shame science journalism has become so sensationalist.
To compare: I find it interesting that, according to Britannica, the odds of someone dying in the United States from a lightning strike is about 1 in 15,300... over the course of one's entire lifetime.
Not exactly. The quote about highway collisions referred to a time in the future where there are substantially more satellites in orbit. If it’s true that these maneuvers are increasing exponentially, that could be a genuine problem.
It still won’t be accurate as every 10 meters is extremely common. The amount of junk can increase 100Mx and their analogy will still be stupid and make the author’s physics (or maybe stats) teacher feel like a little bit of a failure.
