• CarbonatedPastaSauce@lemmy.world
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    7 days ago

    No they don’t. Our greatest success to date was predicting a 1m wide asteroid a whole 3 hours before it hit.

    That’s actually impressive given the challenge at hand. But nobody is tracking centimeter sized objects outside Earths orbit. And the ones they are tracking in orbit are man made trash and not rocks.

    • Maalus@lemmy.world
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      7 days ago

      Yeah, they do. 8700 objects tracked that are 10cm or larger at the time of writing the paper. Shitloads of other debris that wasn’t regularly tracked, but could be, at 1cm or similar sizes. Source

      Edit: I also never said “outside Earths orbit”, I said “in space”

        • Maalus@lemmy.world
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          7 days ago

          I said “centimeter sized”, mr Pedant, which is 1cm. Which is possible to track, just not done. The point is if they can track that, they can track a mosquito in the same room. But by all means, keep arguing semantics.

          • CarbonatedPastaSauce@lemmy.world
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            7 days ago

            Astronomers track centimeter-sized objects up in space

            No they don’t

            Which is possible to track, just not done.

            I rest my case. Precision is important in astronomy.

            • Maalus@lemmy.world
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              7 days ago

              Bruh, you want to be precise, read the fucking source. 1cm objects are tracked. Just not “routinely”. Stop being an annoying redditor. We are talking about capabilities and we are capable of doing that.

              So take your rested case and stick it.