imtoooldforreddit t1_ixbi4oj wrote on November 22, 2022 at 4:53 AM

Reply to comment by seanyseanerson in Just how dark is deep space? by ArmchairSpinDoctor

Space is really empty

If you're picturing dodging like in star wars flying through asteroid fields, that's not what space is like

In our asteroid belt, average distance from an asteroid to the next closest asteroid is about 100,000 miles

For the probes that have gone through the asteroid belt, they had absolutely no way to know if there was an asteroid coming, because the risk of even a single one was basically negligible.

Saerali t1_ixbsyqj wrote on November 22, 2022 at 6:54 AM

Oh didn't know it was THAT spread out. How packed would saturn's rings be ?

Exatex t1_ixbxwxj wrote on November 22, 2022 at 7:59 AM

Very packed - so packed that although the rings are just 10-100m thick, they block most light going though them

run fact edit: Saturns rings are some of the thinnest things known to us. They have a diameter of ~1 million kilometers.

JawnBewty t1_ixcmhdo wrote on November 22, 2022 at 1:06 PM

The combined mass of everything in the asteroid belt is only about 3% of our moon. And 60% of that is tied up in the four biggest asteroids.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asteroid_belt

Insaaaaaaaanely sparse.

tizuby t1_ixciixl wrote on November 22, 2022 at 12:28 PM

You're off by a factor of 6 with average asteroid distance - and that's just in the most dense parts of our asteroid belt (about ~1,000,000 km or ~620,000mi).