3 ms·

I'd love to look at this solar system panopticon that you apparently have access to. We know vanishingly little about the day to day movements of the largest s

I'd love to look at this solar system panopticon that you apparently have access to. We know vanishingly little about the day to day movements of the largest solar system objects. Anything smaller than a medium city is incredibly difficult to find and track.

KineticLensman 3y ago
> Anything smaller than a medium city is incredibly difficult to find and track Sorry, but we routinely track asteroids that are less than 100 metres in size [0]. We track objects in orbit down to a few cm in size [1]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asteroid_Terrestrial-impact_Last_Alert_System https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asteroid_Terrestrial-impact_La... [1] https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/news/orbital_debris.html https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/news/orbital_debr...
- TechBro8615 3y ago
  While we do successfully track many asteroids (for at least part of their orbital periods), this does not mean that we track every asteroid, or even anywhere close to it. In fact, the vast majority of detected asteroid impacts were not predicted by tracking systems before they collided with our planet. This Wikipedia article [0] presents data measuring the (in)effectiveness of the current tracking systems ("the vast majority are still missed"), and describes flaws in the current approach, such as "blind spots" that exist for various reasons depending on tracking methodology, e.g.: > all ground-based telescopes have a large blind spot for any asteroids coming from the direction of the Sun.... [but even] space-based telescopes which can observe a much larger region of the sky around Earth.... still cannot point directly towards the Sun. From this perspective, not only do we fail to track every asteroid, but there are specific and predictable "blind spots" where we cannot track any objects. So if the argument is that aliens could park their ship where we can't see it, then it's not a sufficient counterargument to claim that we track a lot of asteroids, because (a) we still miss the vast majority of them, and (b) many of those we miss for predictable reasons that could be exploited by an adversary who wants to hide an object from our tracking systems. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asteroid_impact_prediction#Effectiveness_of_the_current_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asteroid_impact_prediction#Eff...
dekhn 3y ago
we can predict the forward trajectory of nearly every major solar system object using first principles math and experimental observations and it predicts for years into the future; every time we find another object in the solar system, we add its position and mass and the model gets slightyl more accurate. """As of DE421, perturbations from 343 asteroids, representing about 90% of the mass of the main asteroid belt, have been included in the dynamical model""" Using polynomial interpolation you can get more or less 100meter level accuracy for any major object at any time. If there are remaining large masses that we haven't identified, they must be fairly small, far, and very dark. (this is one of the most important achievements in human history and represents one of the longest scientific/religious activities; people have been predicting orbital paths for thousands of years.)
Nihilartikel 3y ago
I've heard from some very well known and credible sources that there is a nice china teapot orbiting somewhere between the asteroid belt and mars. maybe the UFOs are investigating it's provenance.

KineticLensman 3y ago

> Anything smaller than a medium city is incredibly difficult to find and track Sorry, but we routinely track asteroids that are less than 100 metres in size [0]. We track objects in orbit down to a few cm in size [1]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asteroid_Terrestrial-impact_Last_Alert_System https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asteroid_Terrestrial-impact_La... [1] https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/news/orbital_debris.html https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/news/orbital_debr...

TechBro8615 3y ago
While we do successfully track many asteroids (for at least part of their orbital periods), this does not mean that we track every asteroid, or even anywhere close to it. In fact, the vast majority of detected asteroid impacts were not predicted by tracking systems before they collided with our planet. This Wikipedia article [0] presents data measuring the (in)effectiveness of the current tracking systems ("the vast majority are still missed"), and describes flaws in the current approach, such as "blind spots" that exist for various reasons depending on tracking methodology, e.g.: > all ground-based telescopes have a large blind spot for any asteroids coming from the direction of the Sun.... [but even] space-based telescopes which can observe a much larger region of the sky around Earth.... still cannot point directly towards the Sun. From this perspective, not only do we fail to track every asteroid, but there are specific and predictable "blind spots" where we cannot track any objects. So if the argument is that aliens could park their ship where we can't see it, then it's not a sufficient counterargument to claim that we track a lot of asteroids, because (a) we still miss the vast majority of them, and (b) many of those we miss for predictable reasons that could be exploited by an adversary who wants to hide an object from our tracking systems. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asteroid_impact_prediction#Effectiveness_of_the_current_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asteroid_impact_prediction#Eff...

dekhn 3y ago

we can predict the forward trajectory of nearly every major solar system object using first principles math and experimental observations and it predicts for years into the future; every time we find another object in the solar system, we add its position and mass and the model gets slightyl more accurate. """As of DE421, perturbations from 343 asteroids, representing about 90% of the mass of the main asteroid belt, have been included in the dynamical model""" Using polynomial interpolation you can get more or less 100meter level accuracy for any major object at any time. If there are remaining large masses that we haven't identified, they must be fairly small, far, and very dark. (this is one of the most important achievements in human history and represents one of the longest scientific/religious activities; people have been predicting orbital paths for thousands of years.)

Nihilartikel 3y ago

I've heard from some very well known and credible sources that there is a nice china teapot orbiting somewhere between the asteroid belt and mars. maybe the UFOs are investigating it's provenance.