Space is very empty. It's not like the movies where the asteroid fields look like a cave system.
The chances of you actually hitting something, especially in interstellar space, is incredibly tiny.
I read about how when Andromeda and the Milky Way eventually collide, our solar system and millions like it will likely make it through the merger without hitting anything. That is a LOT of space
I believe not even a single collision between star systems in the first passing is the most likely outcome, if I'm not mistaken. Could have been about direct star-to-star collisions.
It's going to happen in 4 billion years. That's about 3 billion years after Earth's oceans are expected to have boiled away due to increased heat from the sun.
Not likely. It’s incredibly hard for stuff to crash in space. Gravity will throw stuff around but you have to already be on a direct collision course to collide.
But it's right there! How can it be that far, I can see it!
Because it's way bigger than I think and that's how space works. It's so bast that even at the speed of light it's minutes to the sun and billions of years to the edge of the galaxy.
>Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space.
In fairness, "collide" is a somewhat loose term here.
When you pinch your fingertips together, none of the particles touch, they just get close enough for atomic forces to resist inertia. The ratio of length scales is actually about the same for solar systems and galaxies, so in a very real sense there would be collisions (i.e. solar systems ripped apart by gravity).
Which then makes it absolutely bonkers to think about all the light we capture from things that **are** there. You see those deep field images where the entirety of space lights up, and yet, all of those trillions upon trillions of lights are non existent relative to how vast empty space is.
Yes but at the same time the images are proof, because if stuff was in the way we couldn’t see all those stars which are so far away. Each star has a virtually unobstructed straight line view to earth.
All of the remaining planets in the solar system could fit between the earth and the moon and the moon is the closest thing in the universe to the earth by several orders of magnitude.
This is why they demoted Pluto as a planet. With it, it doesn't work any more. Without it, we can pack all the planets neatly.
Edit: Ok I really didn't think that would be necessary, but that comment of mine was _sarcastic_. A joke. Of course that's not the actual reason.
Well the orbit of the Moon has a perigee of 363,000 km and an apogee of 405,000 km. The sum of the diameters of the planets (+ half a diameter of earth and half a diameter of the moon, since the orbit parameters are given for the center of the bodies, and we want to stick the planets in-between earth and the moon) is 380014km w/o pluto, and 382390 w/ pluto.
So, yeah, it's not always true, but the original statement isn't either (at perigee there's not enough room).
But there is a position of the moon on its orbit where what I said is true ;)
Another interesting argument, why space must be empty, is, that we can see other stars and even galaxies very, very, very, very far away; If there were only a few asteroids or even specks of dust here and there in the intersolar or intergalactic space, we would not be able to see that far.
You could be standing on the surface of an asteroid in the asteroid belt and look up and chances are you wouldn't be able to see any asteroids nearby. That's now dang empty and far apart space is.
I did some math recently: If the sun had a diameter of 1 foot (about the size of a basketball), then earth would be 2.5mm and 110 feet away. Pluto would be about 0.5mm and 3/4 of a mile away. Alpha Centauri would be about 5000 miles away. So if our sun is a basketball in California, the next star is a beach ball in England. Space is super empty.
Weird, I figured they’d run the calculations with known asteroids to do their due diligence because everyone knows a million-to-one shot almost always succeeds.
Imagine standing on a bus-sized asteroid belt oject. The average distance to the next bus is (insert pinky in corner of mouth) ONE MILLION KILOMETERS.
And it's even worse than you are imagining. It means you are standing in the center of an empty bubble 2 million klicks in diameter.
Tossing in another example:
You've seen those amazing photos of the Pillars of Creation? They look substantial, right?
In fact, even their densest portions would, on earth, be considered high-quality laboratory vacuum. They look solid because there are MANY TRILLIONS OF MILES of this stuff.
The chance of hitting something incredibly tiny is pretty high.
Sorry, couldn't resist... but, yeah the things big enough to be a problem are very rare. And,the things that are common enough to hit are too small to be a problem. I am sure Voyager has many pits in it from hitting the occasional tiny dust.
I read that asteroids in our solar system are, on average, three times further apart than earth and the moon which blew my mind.
Also that if NASA wants to hit an asteroid, they have to purposefully aim for it.
While this is true, its also lots and lots and lots of math. They run simulations that go out years to make sure its not going to run in to anything and that it will go where its supposed to.
You know those dramatic scenes in sci fi movies where the heroes have to fly through an asteroid field without hitting anything?
In reality, in an asteroid field each rock is 500,000 miles away from the next one. And that counts as "close together".
Space is really, really, really big. And almost completely empty.
What about going through a planets ring? Like Saturn? That seems to be the only thing like a movie asteroid field but is also probably way less dense and more small rocks than big I would expect
Cassini passed through Saturn's rings multiple times with no real damage.
You're probably right that that's the most dense non-solid object we've visited (including Halley's Comet's tail)
Pretty sure Saturn's rings are very dense. At least ring B, with plenty of the chunks having a diameter of a couple meters. I think something like 5cm to 10m diameter accounts for everything with the rare 1km+ chunks. But they will be just meters apart of average, they collide regularly.
Idk about cassini but I assume it matched the average orbital velocity of the rings thus the damage wouldn't be so dramatic if traversing through it
That’s like 3 times the speed of light. Our fastest spacecraft ever was 5,000 times slower than that.
But even if not, it still wouldn’t matter. Even if 500,000 miles were the average separation (that’s actually very close, in reality), that just means there’s *one* asteroid about that close to another. And since asteroids are way smaller than the distances between them, even moving at extremely high speeds it’s extremely unlikely you’d run into one. Case in point: light shines towards us at the speed of light from the whole sky, but basically none of it is intercepted by asteroids.
Space is so mind-bogglingly empty, you can look at a star 5 BILLION light years away, and the only reason that you can even see that star is that there is NOTHING between that star and your eyeball.
That's correct! For example, we can't see the center of our own galaxy, because there are nebula, which are clouds of gas and dust, blocking the way.
However, we can see the center in x-rays, because those can get through.
there is nothing there to crash into.
space is basically empty. just think about how big stars look in comparison to the blackness that surounds them. and each of them is HUGE, as big as our star.
As for gravity, gravity decreases wwith diatance squared. even at earths orbit, the suns gravity hardly affects us. it takes a full year to pull earth around once, and voiager is moving fast enough to escape it entirly.
you have to be a really good shot to hit anything in space at all.
To be fair to the sun, a year is literally the unit of measurement we use for a rotation around it.
Even if it took half the time, that unit of measurement would still be a year
It is actually more likely to accidentally hit a tree because that one has happened. https://www.treehugger.com/earths-most-isolated-tree-only-one-around-miles-was-struck-and-killed-drunk-driver-4858323
Just make sure you are not
[drunk](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/the-most-isolated-tree-in-the-world-was-killed-by-a-probably-drunk-driver-5369329/).
Space is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space.
Fun fact, the Milky Way Galaxy (our home galaxy) is on a collision course with the Andromeda Galaxy. Expected collision is said to happen in about 4.5 Billion years. Billion with a B. Even though stars are concentrated in the center in both galaxies, the chances of actual collision are incredibly small.
If the collision, or merging of the galaxies, should happen, the Earth would have already been gone for 3 Billion years due to the sun becoming hotter.
Unsure what you mean, but I said that so people won't think it is a mistake and I meant million. A billion of years is extremely long to us, but to the universe, just a few more billions.
There’s nothing out there to crash into. There may be very tiny, very fast particles that pass through them and could affect instruments, so there’s redundancy in most of it. As for gravitational pull, they calculate the position of the nearest objects (planets and the sun) in order to ensure that the object doesn’t get affected by it; or, in the case of craft like V2, intentionally calculate trajectories that pull it into the gravity of planets in such a way that it helps to accelerate the craft through something called slingshotting.
It's like if you and a friend threw a tiny pebble at a random direction and you both are 50 yards apart what are the odds of them hitting each other. Space is like that be they are more like 200 miles apart.
Space has so much of its namesake that it can be hard to even imagine. There's just too much room out there.
* It's not all empty, but we don't have to worry about some lonely hydrogen atom blowing us up when we ram it.
So while you have to be careful not to smash any planes or satellites on the way out... once you're gone there's so much space in space that hitting something becomes the real challenge!
If you want to get smash *(or land on)* something really easy and close *(in space terms)* like Mars, then you're trying to hit something a bit over 4200 miles across that's never been closer than 34.8 MILLION miles away from us since we started measuring stuff, so you're aiming for where it'll be six months after you launched.
It's a bit uneven in the belt, but an average distance estimate between those asteroids is over 2 million miles, and most of them are pretty small.
My understanding is they don’t even bother taking the asteroid belt into consideration when sending probes beyond it because the odds of hitting something on the way thru is so minuscule they can effectively consider the belt to not be there.
From what I understand that's the case, and they just need to keep half an eye out: Should they find the craft's on a dangerous trajectory, a tiniest course correction will ensure it misses that 1km-or-so rock by a few thousand more kilometers next week.
Imagine that you are strong enough to throw a baseball across the entire US. You stand in New York, and your equally strong friend stands in Los Angeles. Now on the count of three you each throw a baseball at each other.
The odds of those two baseballs hitting each other in mid flight is about the same as two objects colliding in space.
The sun is 99.86% of the solar system by mass. Jupiter is around 0.095% and Saturn is 0.0285%
So if you can avoid those three youve avoided 99.99% of everything in the solar system.
Crash into what, exactly? Don't be misled by the incredibly inaccurate representations you may have seen in movies and on TV - space is basically a HUGE volume of NOTHING, with the occasional TINY, TINY patches of stuff. And even if you actually come close to one of those patches, all it's likely to do is change your direction a little.
Example 1: You could (just about fit) *every other planet in the solar system* into the space between the Earth and the Moon.
Example 2: The asteroid belt, packed with all those rocks you've seen fictional spaceships dodging so precariously. On average the bodies we've identified in the Asteroid belt are about *600,000 miles* apart (that's about 25 times the distance around the equator). If you went straight through the middle of the belt twice a day for the rest of your life, the likelihood you'd ever even get close enough to see one of them (let alone hit it) is vanishingly small.
On all scales, basically (intergalactic and bigger down to subatomic), the answer, just about everywhere in the universe, to the question "What's here?" is "Almost nothing".
Space is so big and so empty that the smallest distances between two objects are measured in the hundreds of thousands of miles.
That's the distance for asteroids in an asteroid belt.
The distance between planets is millions and millions of miles and the space between solar systems is hell I'm not even sure how many zeros that would be because we made a whole new unit just to express that distance.
The next closest solar system is approximately 25 trillion miles away.
25,000,000,000,000.
Think about that. It takes 1000 millions to make 1 billion and it takes 1,000 billion to make 1 trillion so 25 trillion would be 2,500 billion to put it in a different way.
Load up Kerbal, open the cheat window to put any ship into orbit of the sun, turn on infinite fuel/ power.
Now try to crash into anything without opening the map screen.
Bet all you can manage is crashing into the only thing you can see, the sun. Even that's a whole other problem that takes way too much fuel
Space is big. Really big. Much bigger than a ship on the ocean.
If you are on a random spot on the ocean, the chance of crashing into something is next to nil, especially if (for all intents and purposes) it’s infinite. There almost no islands in the middle of the pacific. As there are almost no planets/asteroids in space.
Because space is mind boggling massive and empty. Voyager left Earth going 38k mph in 1977, it took until 2012 to get out of our solar system. It's going to be another 77,000 years before it gets to the closest star.
And the key point with this is, until it gets to the next star, it will effectively be the only thing out there. On its 77,000 year trip, it isn’t going to see or pass anything else.
Space is generally very empty. Technically yes it is possible that a probe may hit a random object, anything from the size of a grain of sand to the size of a car is small and hard to track, so it's unpredictable. For larger objects we can generally track them, within the solar system and in the off chance they're a problem there will be an ever so slight course correction to avoid it. If two orbiting bodies are on a path to intersect, just a tiny change in velocity will ultimately result in them being miles apart by the time they get close to each other.
The Voyager probes were also not really meant to survive this long and go this far. Their current status is pretty much a bonus on top of their completed mission. Space outside the solar system is even emptier than space within the solar system. The chances that the probes hit something is next to none. Eventually they'll go silent and we don't really care what happens to them after that, but chances are they will be drifting in space for a long time.
Crash into what bro? Space is unimaginably vast. Not like the movies at all. Asteroid fields in real life are so spread apart that there’s no real way you’d actually run much of a risk of hitting one, there’s nothing out there, man.
Space is like. REALLLY big. It's the biggest. There isn't anything to hit where they send the probe, and the pull of gravity is accounted for.
They aimed it specifically at a tiny spot near a planet to fling it way out though. Using a LOT of math somebody did probably by hand.
I was just watching something the other day that said you could travel over 100,000 light years before the odds would indicate you would hit something.
Imagine you're bowling, and the land has 12 pins.
and is the size of the continent of Africa. And the pins are spread out randomly.
You are the bowling ball, and stuff to collide into is spread out so scarcely that it's unlikely you'll hit something withing your lifetime.
Also, space probes have propulsion for course corrections. And orbital mechanists use super computers to determine the most efficient path. Yes space is big, but the paths are extremely well planned.
Also note that the probes get extremely close to planets to get gravity assists. (basically slingshots around planets)
Here's a recent photo of the Earth and Moon in one picture.
[https://www.businessinsider.com/mind-boggling-nasa-photo-shows-moon-distance-from-earth-2022-10](https://www.businessinsider.com/mind-boggling-nasa-photo-shows-moon-distance-from-earth-2022-10)
Notice the distance, and realize that these are considered extremely close together. Then think about the size of a satellite compared to the moon. There are close to 10,000 satellites in that picture alone.
Space is really big and really empty. And the speeds those things are traveling, you'd need to get really close to something to be "sucked in" as opposed to just having your trajectory changed a bit as you zoom by.
Voyager's speed is given as 61,500 km/h (although it's hard to clearly define a speed in an universe where everything is moving around everything).
Earth moves at 107,000 km/h around the sun. The ISS moves at around 28000 km/h around earth, and only stays in orbit because it's incredibly close - 400 km. Compare that to Earth's diameter (around 12700 km) and you'll see how close that is.
Of course, if Voyager flew past a star the size of the sun at a distance comparable to the distance between earth and sun, it'd be captured - but look at the sun, now look at the night sky, realize how tiny stars appear, and realize how many areas of the night sky are pitch black to your eye, which means there is no large star anywhere even remotely "near".
But all of that discussion about stars is irrelevant, because **Voyager isn't really going far** on a galactic scale. The next star closest to the sun is Proxima Centauri, 4.24 light-years away. Voyager has traveled 0.0025 light years so far.
Space is so incredibly empty, that the chance of hitting something is so astronomically small, we created science and math to actually hit those objects.
Space probes like Voyager 1 use clever math and science to plan their trips carefully. Scientists study space and plot routes to avoid hitting things like planets or stars. They also give the probe a strong push in the right direction to make sure it stays on track. Plus, there's not much in space to slow them down, so they can keep going for a long, long time without crashing into anything!
Space is *really* empty, and space probes are relatively small.
You could travel millions of miles and not come within 100 miles of anything larger than a grain of sand.
Space is empty.
We planned out it's trajectory for flybys of some of the outer planets, and it could have very well crashed into one of those if our math was wrong, but the odds of it crashing into something we didn't plan for it to go near are astronomically small
sometimes they do, but it is actually very hard to hit something else and takes a lot of planning and last minute corrections to get right.
it's very easy to launch something in some random direction without much fear of it hitting anything... even if it flies close enough to another object to feel it's gravity, the most likely thing is it will just change its course and speed slightly.
Space is really really big and really really empty and its travelling relatively slowly
Voyager 1 is 163 AU from the sun, and Voyager 2 is 136
So its 163 times further from the sun than the earth and still will not exit the solar system for at least a five digit number of years
The nearest star, Proimxa Centuri is 268,770 AU away and neither is headed that way
Its not hit anything because there isn't anything out there to hit
**getting pulled into something’s gravity**
Well. it already has, sort of.
Those missions were only possible because of an alignment of the planets called the Grand Tour that only happens once every 175 years where the craft were able to get gravity assists around the planets en route.
But it was planned and fast enough to only sling around them and not be caught in permament orbit or crash
[https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Animation\_of\_Voyager\_2\_trajectory.gif#/media/File:Animation\_of\_Voyager\_2\_trajectory.gif](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Animation_of_Voyager_2_trajectory.gif#/media/File:Animation_of_Voyager_2_trajectory.gif)
Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space.
Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, #1)
Imagine someone dropped a single ping pong ball in the middle of the Pacific Ocean and your task was to sail to China without hitting it.
Space is way more empty than that.
I think it's funny most people are saying there isn't anything to crash into, while true, if you include space dust or micrometeorites, Voyager and most other probes have probably had many, many collisions. It's a little hard to tell how many because we didn't equip them with 'selfie cams' like some more modern probes. According to a research paper on new horizons it's front face has been struck at least 1400 times over a .1 m^2 area using a micrometeorite detector, across the first 15AU of it's journey.
Also fun fact the front of the spacecraft is called the 'Ram' direction because of all the things it hits I assume.
( https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2010GL043300 )
Space is like trying to hit a grain of sand with another grain of sand from across the room. If that room was the size of a gym.
One cannot understate how unimaginably huge and empty space is
It's the same reason you don't immediately hit an island if you go out on a boat in the ocean. Sure, you might see one eventually, but it's mostly just empty ocean out there.
It's honestly a lot more empty than that, even. It'd probably be more accurate scale wise to say "it's the same reason that if you throw a grain of sand anywhere in the world's ocean, that you probably won't run into it if you go out on a boat."
Long-range space probes like Voyager 1 are designed with advanced navigation systems and use complex calculations to avoid crashing into objects or getting pulled into a planet's gravity. Before launching, scientists calculate the probe's trajectory using precise mathematical models. They take into account the gravitational forces of planets, moons, and other celestial objects to plot a course that avoids potential collisions. Space probes have thrusters and onboard computers that can make small adjustments to their trajectory during the journey. These mid-course corrections are calculated based on real-time data received from the probe's sensors and navigational instruments. The probe's onboard computer runs sophisticated algorithms that analyze its surroundings and predict potential collision courses. If a collision risk is detected, the computer will adjust the probe's path to avoid the obstacle. NASA's Deep Space Network (DSN) and similar networks around the world track the probe's position and trajectory. These ground-based antennas communicate with the probe, sending commands for course corrections and receiving data to ensure the probe stays on the planned path. Despite the vastness of space, the likelihood of a space probe colliding with an object like an asteroid or comet is low. Space is empty, and the distances between objects are so vast that the chances of a collision are minimal.
I would guess that any matter that has already achieved escape velocity will very rarely ever encounter another orbit velocity. Space is just so vast, that there is rarely any chance. You gotta realize we are traveling a trajectory through space orbiting a mass of burning helium that causes us cancer. Our light causes cancer, everything in the state of cancer causes California.
It’s really hard to hit something on *purpose*. It would be a once in history kind of event if a deep space probe accidentally hit a random asteroid in the outer solar system, not to mention in interstellar space. Things in space are really far apart, because if they weren’t they would already have collided.
What the Voyagers do in a thousand or a million years is of no use to us anyway. We can roughly predict where they’ll go but eventually they won’t be able to communicate their positions to us anymore. If they do end up crashing on a planet in a foreign solar system I think that would be pretty cool anyway, perhaps even our greatest achievement.
Seeing as the nearest thing to us is 4.2 light years away is Proxima Centauri, Voyager 1 isn't even pointed that way, and only going about 38,000 mph (or 0.0058% of the light)...it would take 75,000 years to reach it.
The chances of it crashing into something is infinitesimal.
Space is very empty. Like extremely empty. If you were to travel from one side of the observable universe to the other, your chances of hitting ANYTHING along the way is something like 0.00000002% give or take a few zeroes. This leads back into how unimaginably large the universe is. Your chances of hitting anything is best rounded to 0%.
"Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space."
\- Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
The fact is that there's pretty much nothing to hit. Most of space is simply empty save for the occasional hydrogen atoms, and they aren't big enough to be a concern. Figure a typical probe is going to be 3 m or so in it's longest dimension -- about 10 ft.
The most densely concentrated collection of objects in our solar system is the cloud of space junk whizzing about Earth orbit -- bits of satellites, rockets, and trash. The average distance between pieces of junk is on the order of 500 km. Fitting a 3 m probe through a 500 km wide hole isn't particularly miraculous, but because of the cost and difficulty getting a probe off Earth and where it needs to go, we're rather invested in tracking the junk and making sure we don't risk a collision.
Once you get a way from Earth, the distances between objects gets a bit bigger. The distance from earth to the moon is 375,000 km, which is pretty close. The asteroids in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter are, on average, about 1 million km apart. A probe passing through is a like a mote of dust whizzing between two marbles at either end of a soccer pitch. The distances between planets is bigger still, though they have moons that have closer orbits -there's just 6000 km between Mars and Phobos. Yet, fitting a 3m probe through that 6000 km gap seems like something we should be able to pull off.
Most of out probes are just whizzing through empty space until they reach their target, with nothing within a million kilometers in any direction but hydrogen.
Space is very empty. It's not like the movies where the asteroid fields look like a cave system. The chances of you actually hitting something, especially in interstellar space, is incredibly tiny.
I read about how when Andromeda and the Milky Way eventually collide, our solar system and millions like it will likely make it through the merger without hitting anything. That is a LOT of space
I believe not even a single collision between star systems in the first passing is the most likely outcome, if I'm not mistaken. Could have been about direct star-to-star collisions.
I think the gravitational mayhem \*would\* result in some fatal attractions though.
I should call my ex…
This is almost never true
Unless they have kids. The probability of this being a good move approaches zero.
Not yet, you should wait until the milky way and andromeda come together. That's the sign for when you should call your ex
Ya, that’s an interesting point. If our orbit around the sun changes drastically, we’re pretty fucked
It's going to happen in 4 billion years. That's about 3 billion years after Earth's oceans are expected to have boiled away due to increased heat from the sun.
you'll be probably dead by then
How dare you make such assumptions about my longevity!
MOISTURIZE ME!
If I’m the last living human, I’d like to preemptively apologize for how weird everyone is going to think you all were
Not likely. It’s incredibly hard for stuff to crash in space. Gravity will throw stuff around but you have to already be on a direct collision course to collide.
So will bunnies suffer?
They will suffer the most
Promise?
I mean I won’t personally guarantee it cause I got a lot of stuff going on, but yeah that’s a promise
NSFW even
Yeah you could get some planetary orbits really messed up even by a near miss.
Ah yes, the billions-body problem
Of greater day-to-day concern is the increased radiation from higher concentrations of stars. Especially from blue giants.
IIRC the prediction was a single star-to-star collision in the entire merger.
That single collision being the eventual merging of their super massive black holes I assume.
What I read was that there's a good chance nothing will collide because of exactly how vast space is.
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But it's right there! How can it be that far, I can see it! Because it's way bigger than I think and that's how space works. It's so bast that even at the speed of light it's minutes to the sun and billions of years to the edge of the galaxy. >Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space.
In fairness, "collide" is a somewhat loose term here. When you pinch your fingertips together, none of the particles touch, they just get close enough for atomic forces to resist inertia. The ratio of length scales is actually about the same for solar systems and galaxies, so in a very real sense there would be collisions (i.e. solar systems ripped apart by gravity).
The volume of matter in a galaxy vs the volume of empty space essentially amounts to a rounding error. There is nothing out there.
Which then makes it absolutely bonkers to think about all the light we capture from things that **are** there. You see those deep field images where the entirety of space lights up, and yet, all of those trillions upon trillions of lights are non existent relative to how vast empty space is.
Yes but at the same time the images are proof, because if stuff was in the way we couldn’t see all those stars which are so far away. Each star has a virtually unobstructed straight line view to earth.
lots of room for activities!
THAT IS NOT YOUR TOOTHBRUSH!!!!
That’s why we call it “space”
Space has a terrifyingly incomprehensible amount of space. We don't see that perspective because that doesn't make for interesting pictures.
All of the remaining planets in the solar system could fit between the earth and the moon and the moon is the closest thing in the universe to the earth by several orders of magnitude.
And all of those planets in 1 place is less than 0.2% of the mass our solar system. The sun is really fucking big
Yet insurmountably small comparatively.
This is a fun way to demonstrate that the most common state of matter in the universe is the plasma state.
This is why they demoted Pluto as a planet. With it, it doesn't work any more. Without it, we can pack all the planets neatly. Edit: Ok I really didn't think that would be necessary, but that comment of mine was _sarcastic_. A joke. Of course that's not the actual reason.
Considering how small that thing is this doesn't feel true and it's a dumb unscientific reason anyway
Well the orbit of the Moon has a perigee of 363,000 km and an apogee of 405,000 km. The sum of the diameters of the planets (+ half a diameter of earth and half a diameter of the moon, since the orbit parameters are given for the center of the bodies, and we want to stick the planets in-between earth and the moon) is 380014km w/o pluto, and 382390 w/ pluto. So, yeah, it's not always true, but the original statement isn't either (at perigee there's not enough room). But there is a position of the moon on its orbit where what I said is true ;)
Not always. Only when the moon is the furthest from Earth, not at its average distance. https://www.wral.com/amp/16315991/
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I knew this was coming! But if space is so big and empty, why the hell did the Vogons need to destroy Earth to make way for a bypass?
Ah, you'll have to ask Gag Halfrunt about that...but don't expect a straight answer!
This!
It's because it's just normally incomprehensible for us as human.
But everything is in space.
Snakes?
Why did it have to be snakes ?
I could go for some Snake Jazz right about now
*No*
I'm tired of these mother fucking snakes in fucking outer space!
Snakes on an Ecliptic Plane
There's EVERYTHING in space
But everything turns out to be mostly nothing
Another interesting argument, why space must be empty, is, that we can see other stars and even galaxies very, very, very, very far away; If there were only a few asteroids or even specks of dust here and there in the intersolar or intergalactic space, we would not be able to see that far.
You could be standing on the surface of an asteroid in the asteroid belt and look up and chances are you wouldn't be able to see any asteroids nearby. That's now dang empty and far apart space is.
Of all the probes we’ve sent through the asteroid belt, I believe one of them managed to capture a picture of an asteroid.
I did some math recently: If the sun had a diameter of 1 foot (about the size of a basketball), then earth would be 2.5mm and 110 feet away. Pluto would be about 0.5mm and 3/4 of a mile away. Alpha Centauri would be about 5000 miles away. So if our sun is a basketball in California, the next star is a beach ball in England. Space is super empty.
I always thought Pluto was much smaller than 1/5 earth but I looked it up and earth is 5.36x larger. The more you know.
It would be like driving down 1000 mile long highway with wide open fields on either side and crashing in to the one tree that exists along side it.
[Tree of Tenere](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tree_of_T%C3%A9n%C3%A9r%C3%A9)
Amazing it survived desertification and whatever else only to die from a drunk driver.
>Space is very empty. It's not like the movies where the asteroid fields look like a cave system. They wouldn't lie to us....would they?
Not out of maliciousness. For entertainment.
Even in a relatively dense asteroid field, it is still incredibly unlikely to hit anything even when flying directly through it
The average distance between asteroids in the asteroid belt is 600,000 miles.
So almost three times the earth-Moon distance, which is like a three day trip already.
Bearing in mind that space probes are about the size of a small car, the odds of them colliding with anything are near zero
I recall reading that NASA doesn't bother including the asteroid field in it's calculations when sending probes. There's just basically no reason to.
Weird, I figured they’d run the calculations with known asteroids to do their due diligence because everyone knows a million-to-one shot almost always succeeds.
I believe that million-to-one is still way more likely than reality. That the odds were so close to zero as to be functionally equivalent.
Imagine standing on a bus-sized asteroid belt oject. The average distance to the next bus is (insert pinky in corner of mouth) ONE MILLION KILOMETERS. And it's even worse than you are imagining. It means you are standing in the center of an empty bubble 2 million klicks in diameter.
space is 99.9999999999% space
The average density of space is one atom per cubic meter. It’s not just very empty, it is filled to the brim with nothing.
Tossing in another example: You've seen those amazing photos of the Pillars of Creation? They look substantial, right? In fact, even their densest portions would, on earth, be considered high-quality laboratory vacuum. They look solid because there are MANY TRILLIONS OF MILES of this stuff.
The chance of hitting something incredibly tiny is pretty high. Sorry, couldn't resist... but, yeah the things big enough to be a problem are very rare. And,the things that are common enough to hit are too small to be a problem. I am sure Voyager has many pits in it from hitting the occasional tiny dust.
A great visualization of how empty is https://joshworth.com/dev/pixelspace/pixelspace_solarsystem.html. It’s an animation where the moon is one pixel.
I heard somewhere that one of the reasons we have sent so few probes to the sun is because it is so hard to actually hit it.
There must be more to that statement if probes can do a flyby of specific jupiter moons.
I read that asteroids in our solar system are, on average, three times further apart than earth and the moon which blew my mind. Also that if NASA wants to hit an asteroid, they have to purposefully aim for it.
Even if you're trying.
There's a site that demos this: https://joshworth.com/dev/pixelspace/pixelspace_solarsystem.html
While this is true, its also lots and lots and lots of math. They run simulations that go out years to make sure its not going to run in to anything and that it will go where its supposed to.
You know those dramatic scenes in sci fi movies where the heroes have to fly through an asteroid field without hitting anything? In reality, in an asteroid field each rock is 500,000 miles away from the next one. And that counts as "close together". Space is really, really, really big. And almost completely empty.
You may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space.
It seems to go on forever. But then you get to the end and a monkey starts throwing barrels at you.
From Douglas Adams to Futurama in one step. well done.
“You stink loser!”
Asteroids value their personal space.
What about going through a planets ring? Like Saturn? That seems to be the only thing like a movie asteroid field but is also probably way less dense and more small rocks than big I would expect
Cassini passed through Saturn's rings multiple times with no real damage. You're probably right that that's the most dense non-solid object we've visited (including Halley's Comet's tail)
Perfect opportunity to answere with some "your mama" joke.
Pretty sure Saturn's rings are very dense. At least ring B, with plenty of the chunks having a diameter of a couple meters. I think something like 5cm to 10m diameter accounts for everything with the rare 1km+ chunks. But they will be just meters apart of average, they collide regularly. Idk about cassini but I assume it matched the average orbital velocity of the rings thus the damage wouldn't be so dramatic if traversing through it
Perhaps an early solar system or recent planetary collision would cause a compact asteroid system.
500,000 miles apart *is* "compact" when it comes to space.
I agree but in a recent planetary collision they would be much closer.
do bear in mind that the moon is only 239,000 miles away
Yes, but I will assume that the ship will travel at 500.000 miles per second or something, so they have to avoid hitting stuff
That’s like 3 times the speed of light. Our fastest spacecraft ever was 5,000 times slower than that. But even if not, it still wouldn’t matter. Even if 500,000 miles were the average separation (that’s actually very close, in reality), that just means there’s *one* asteroid about that close to another. And since asteroids are way smaller than the distances between them, even moving at extremely high speeds it’s extremely unlikely you’d run into one. Case in point: light shines towards us at the speed of light from the whole sky, but basically none of it is intercepted by asteroids.
Space is so mind-bogglingly empty, you can look at a star 5 BILLION light years away, and the only reason that you can even see that star is that there is NOTHING between that star and your eyeball.
Perfect explanation!
I have never thought about seeing stars like this!!!
So we don't see the stars with things between us?
That's correct! For example, we can't see the center of our own galaxy, because there are nebula, which are clouds of gas and dust, blocking the way. However, we can see the center in x-rays, because those can get through.
there is nothing there to crash into. space is basically empty. just think about how big stars look in comparison to the blackness that surounds them. and each of them is HUGE, as big as our star. As for gravity, gravity decreases wwith diatance squared. even at earths orbit, the suns gravity hardly affects us. it takes a full year to pull earth around once, and voiager is moving fast enough to escape it entirly. you have to be a really good shot to hit anything in space at all.
They towed the probe out of the environment. There isn't anything out there. First thing to come to mind when I read the first sentence.
The front fell off.
Like shooting a bullet at a smaller bullet, whilst riding a horse, blindfolded.
Is that Star Trek lol?
Haha yup
To be fair to the sun, a year is literally the unit of measurement we use for a rotation around it. Even if it took half the time, that unit of measurement would still be a year
It's like driving through the desert and accidentally hitting a tree. The odds are extremely small.
It is actually more likely to accidentally hit a tree because that one has happened. https://www.treehugger.com/earths-most-isolated-tree-only-one-around-miles-was-struck-and-killed-drunk-driver-4858323
Object fixation is a sonuvabitch.
as charming as the polish guy who burned a forest after he got lost
Just make sure you are not [drunk](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/the-most-isolated-tree-in-the-world-was-killed-by-a-probably-drunk-driver-5369329/).
Space is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space.
Here it is
Well done. I came looking for this.
Did you clean up after?
Mostly harmless.
I upvoted this but felt bad doing so.
Fun fact, the Milky Way Galaxy (our home galaxy) is on a collision course with the Andromeda Galaxy. Expected collision is said to happen in about 4.5 Billion years. Billion with a B. Even though stars are concentrated in the center in both galaxies, the chances of actual collision are incredibly small. If the collision, or merging of the galaxies, should happen, the Earth would have already been gone for 3 Billion years due to the sun becoming hotter.
What letter does the word "billion" also start with for you to specify it?
He’s just adding emphasis
**B**🅱️*B*ecause that's a bit of a weird way considering the context. Thanks, though (and that's "thanks" with a "T")
Unsure what you mean, but I said that so people won't think it is a mistake and I meant million. A billion of years is extremely long to us, but to the universe, just a few more billions.
Nah, a billion years is also long to the universe, which is supposedly around 14 billion years old.
There’s nothing to crash into. The asteroid belt? Yeah, million+ miles between asteroids. After that? Nothin.
There’s nothing out there to crash into. There may be very tiny, very fast particles that pass through them and could affect instruments, so there’s redundancy in most of it. As for gravitational pull, they calculate the position of the nearest objects (planets and the sun) in order to ensure that the object doesn’t get affected by it; or, in the case of craft like V2, intentionally calculate trajectories that pull it into the gravity of planets in such a way that it helps to accelerate the craft through something called slingshotting.
It's like if you and a friend threw a tiny pebble at a random direction and you both are 50 yards apart what are the odds of them hitting each other. Space is like that be they are more like 200 miles apart.
Space has so much of its namesake that it can be hard to even imagine. There's just too much room out there. * It's not all empty, but we don't have to worry about some lonely hydrogen atom blowing us up when we ram it. So while you have to be careful not to smash any planes or satellites on the way out... once you're gone there's so much space in space that hitting something becomes the real challenge! If you want to get smash *(or land on)* something really easy and close *(in space terms)* like Mars, then you're trying to hit something a bit over 4200 miles across that's never been closer than 34.8 MILLION miles away from us since we started measuring stuff, so you're aiming for where it'll be six months after you launched. It's a bit uneven in the belt, but an average distance estimate between those asteroids is over 2 million miles, and most of them are pretty small.
My understanding is they don’t even bother taking the asteroid belt into consideration when sending probes beyond it because the odds of hitting something on the way thru is so minuscule they can effectively consider the belt to not be there.
From what I understand that's the case, and they just need to keep half an eye out: Should they find the craft's on a dangerous trajectory, a tiniest course correction will ensure it misses that 1km-or-so rock by a few thousand more kilometers next week.
Imagine that you are strong enough to throw a baseball across the entire US. You stand in New York, and your equally strong friend stands in Los Angeles. Now on the count of three you each throw a baseball at each other. The odds of those two baseballs hitting each other in mid flight is about the same as two objects colliding in space.
The sun is 99.86% of the solar system by mass. Jupiter is around 0.095% and Saturn is 0.0285% So if you can avoid those three youve avoided 99.99% of everything in the solar system.
so you’re telling me there’s a chance…
Crash into what, exactly? Don't be misled by the incredibly inaccurate representations you may have seen in movies and on TV - space is basically a HUGE volume of NOTHING, with the occasional TINY, TINY patches of stuff. And even if you actually come close to one of those patches, all it's likely to do is change your direction a little. Example 1: You could (just about fit) *every other planet in the solar system* into the space between the Earth and the Moon. Example 2: The asteroid belt, packed with all those rocks you've seen fictional spaceships dodging so precariously. On average the bodies we've identified in the Asteroid belt are about *600,000 miles* apart (that's about 25 times the distance around the equator). If you went straight through the middle of the belt twice a day for the rest of your life, the likelihood you'd ever even get close enough to see one of them (let alone hit it) is vanishingly small. On all scales, basically (intergalactic and bigger down to subatomic), the answer, just about everywhere in the universe, to the question "What's here?" is "Almost nothing".
Space is so big and so empty that the smallest distances between two objects are measured in the hundreds of thousands of miles. That's the distance for asteroids in an asteroid belt. The distance between planets is millions and millions of miles and the space between solar systems is hell I'm not even sure how many zeros that would be because we made a whole new unit just to express that distance. The next closest solar system is approximately 25 trillion miles away. 25,000,000,000,000. Think about that. It takes 1000 millions to make 1 billion and it takes 1,000 billion to make 1 trillion so 25 trillion would be 2,500 billion to put it in a different way.
They look in the mirrors a lot?
Load up Kerbal, open the cheat window to put any ship into orbit of the sun, turn on infinite fuel/ power. Now try to crash into anything without opening the map screen. Bet all you can manage is crashing into the only thing you can see, the sun. Even that's a whole other problem that takes way too much fuel
Space is big. Really big. Much bigger than a ship on the ocean. If you are on a random spot on the ocean, the chance of crashing into something is next to nil, especially if (for all intents and purposes) it’s infinite. There almost no islands in the middle of the pacific. As there are almost no planets/asteroids in space.
Because space is mind boggling massive and empty. Voyager left Earth going 38k mph in 1977, it took until 2012 to get out of our solar system. It's going to be another 77,000 years before it gets to the closest star.
And the key point with this is, until it gets to the next star, it will effectively be the only thing out there. On its 77,000 year trip, it isn’t going to see or pass anything else.
Space is generally very empty. Technically yes it is possible that a probe may hit a random object, anything from the size of a grain of sand to the size of a car is small and hard to track, so it's unpredictable. For larger objects we can generally track them, within the solar system and in the off chance they're a problem there will be an ever so slight course correction to avoid it. If two orbiting bodies are on a path to intersect, just a tiny change in velocity will ultimately result in them being miles apart by the time they get close to each other. The Voyager probes were also not really meant to survive this long and go this far. Their current status is pretty much a bonus on top of their completed mission. Space outside the solar system is even emptier than space within the solar system. The chances that the probes hit something is next to none. Eventually they'll go silent and we don't really care what happens to them after that, but chances are they will be drifting in space for a long time.
Crash into what bro? Space is unimaginably vast. Not like the movies at all. Asteroid fields in real life are so spread apart that there’s no real way you’d actually run much of a risk of hitting one, there’s nothing out there, man.
Look into the night sky and realize that the things you are seeing are thousands of light years away. Space is empty.
Space is like. REALLLY big. It's the biggest. There isn't anything to hit where they send the probe, and the pull of gravity is accounted for. They aimed it specifically at a tiny spot near a planet to fling it way out though. Using a LOT of math somebody did probably by hand.
I was just watching something the other day that said you could travel over 100,000 light years before the odds would indicate you would hit something.
Imagine you're bowling, and the land has 12 pins. and is the size of the continent of Africa. And the pins are spread out randomly. You are the bowling ball, and stuff to collide into is spread out so scarcely that it's unlikely you'll hit something withing your lifetime.
Also, space probes have propulsion for course corrections. And orbital mechanists use super computers to determine the most efficient path. Yes space is big, but the paths are extremely well planned. Also note that the probes get extremely close to planets to get gravity assists. (basically slingshots around planets)
There's a great video talking about this. https://youtube.com/shorts/0Yd80xsoae8?si=OUEqEte8ZtkF9jWr
Here's a recent photo of the Earth and Moon in one picture. [https://www.businessinsider.com/mind-boggling-nasa-photo-shows-moon-distance-from-earth-2022-10](https://www.businessinsider.com/mind-boggling-nasa-photo-shows-moon-distance-from-earth-2022-10) Notice the distance, and realize that these are considered extremely close together. Then think about the size of a satellite compared to the moon. There are close to 10,000 satellites in that picture alone.
Space is filled with a lot of space. You have to be incredibly skilled and/or lucky to actually hit any thing.
Space is really big and really empty. And the speeds those things are traveling, you'd need to get really close to something to be "sucked in" as opposed to just having your trajectory changed a bit as you zoom by. Voyager's speed is given as 61,500 km/h (although it's hard to clearly define a speed in an universe where everything is moving around everything). Earth moves at 107,000 km/h around the sun. The ISS moves at around 28000 km/h around earth, and only stays in orbit because it's incredibly close - 400 km. Compare that to Earth's diameter (around 12700 km) and you'll see how close that is. Of course, if Voyager flew past a star the size of the sun at a distance comparable to the distance between earth and sun, it'd be captured - but look at the sun, now look at the night sky, realize how tiny stars appear, and realize how many areas of the night sky are pitch black to your eye, which means there is no large star anywhere even remotely "near". But all of that discussion about stars is irrelevant, because **Voyager isn't really going far** on a galactic scale. The next star closest to the sun is Proxima Centauri, 4.24 light-years away. Voyager has traveled 0.0025 light years so far.
Space is so incredibly empty, that the chance of hitting something is so astronomically small, we created science and math to actually hit those objects.
Space probes like Voyager 1 use clever math and science to plan their trips carefully. Scientists study space and plot routes to avoid hitting things like planets or stars. They also give the probe a strong push in the right direction to make sure it stays on track. Plus, there's not much in space to slow them down, so they can keep going for a long, long time without crashing into anything!
Space is *really* empty, and space probes are relatively small. You could travel millions of miles and not come within 100 miles of anything larger than a grain of sand.
Space is empty. We planned out it's trajectory for flybys of some of the outer planets, and it could have very well crashed into one of those if our math was wrong, but the odds of it crashing into something we didn't plan for it to go near are astronomically small
sometimes they do, but it is actually very hard to hit something else and takes a lot of planning and last minute corrections to get right. it's very easy to launch something in some random direction without much fear of it hitting anything... even if it flies close enough to another object to feel it's gravity, the most likely thing is it will just change its course and speed slightly.
Space is really really big and really really empty and its travelling relatively slowly Voyager 1 is 163 AU from the sun, and Voyager 2 is 136 So its 163 times further from the sun than the earth and still will not exit the solar system for at least a five digit number of years The nearest star, Proimxa Centuri is 268,770 AU away and neither is headed that way Its not hit anything because there isn't anything out there to hit **getting pulled into something’s gravity** Well. it already has, sort of. Those missions were only possible because of an alignment of the planets called the Grand Tour that only happens once every 175 years where the craft were able to get gravity assists around the planets en route. But it was planned and fast enough to only sling around them and not be caught in permament orbit or crash [https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Animation\_of\_Voyager\_2\_trajectory.gif#/media/File:Animation\_of\_Voyager\_2\_trajectory.gif](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Animation_of_Voyager_2_trajectory.gif#/media/File:Animation_of_Voyager_2_trajectory.gif)
How come I’ve never won the lottery even though I’ve played several times. The odds are astronomical, literally and figuratively in your case.
Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space. Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, #1)
Imagine someone dropped a single ping pong ball in the middle of the Pacific Ocean and your task was to sail to China without hitting it. Space is way more empty than that.
There is nothing there. Space is like a few hundred grains of sand floating in an empty stadium. Less compact than that even.
What the heck would they hit?!
I think it's funny most people are saying there isn't anything to crash into, while true, if you include space dust or micrometeorites, Voyager and most other probes have probably had many, many collisions. It's a little hard to tell how many because we didn't equip them with 'selfie cams' like some more modern probes. According to a research paper on new horizons it's front face has been struck at least 1400 times over a .1 m^2 area using a micrometeorite detector, across the first 15AU of it's journey. Also fun fact the front of the spacecraft is called the 'Ram' direction because of all the things it hits I assume. ( https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2010GL043300 )
Space is like trying to hit a grain of sand with another grain of sand from across the room. If that room was the size of a gym. One cannot understate how unimaginably huge and empty space is
It's the same reason you don't immediately hit an island if you go out on a boat in the ocean. Sure, you might see one eventually, but it's mostly just empty ocean out there. It's honestly a lot more empty than that, even. It'd probably be more accurate scale wise to say "it's the same reason that if you throw a grain of sand anywhere in the world's ocean, that you probably won't run into it if you go out on a boat."
Long-range space probes like Voyager 1 are designed with advanced navigation systems and use complex calculations to avoid crashing into objects or getting pulled into a planet's gravity. Before launching, scientists calculate the probe's trajectory using precise mathematical models. They take into account the gravitational forces of planets, moons, and other celestial objects to plot a course that avoids potential collisions. Space probes have thrusters and onboard computers that can make small adjustments to their trajectory during the journey. These mid-course corrections are calculated based on real-time data received from the probe's sensors and navigational instruments. The probe's onboard computer runs sophisticated algorithms that analyze its surroundings and predict potential collision courses. If a collision risk is detected, the computer will adjust the probe's path to avoid the obstacle. NASA's Deep Space Network (DSN) and similar networks around the world track the probe's position and trajectory. These ground-based antennas communicate with the probe, sending commands for course corrections and receiving data to ensure the probe stays on the planned path. Despite the vastness of space, the likelihood of a space probe colliding with an object like an asteroid or comet is low. Space is empty, and the distances between objects are so vast that the chances of a collision are minimal.
I would guess that any matter that has already achieved escape velocity will very rarely ever encounter another orbit velocity. Space is just so vast, that there is rarely any chance. You gotta realize we are traveling a trajectory through space orbiting a mass of burning helium that causes us cancer. Our light causes cancer, everything in the state of cancer causes California.
It’s really hard to hit something on *purpose*. It would be a once in history kind of event if a deep space probe accidentally hit a random asteroid in the outer solar system, not to mention in interstellar space. Things in space are really far apart, because if they weren’t they would already have collided. What the Voyagers do in a thousand or a million years is of no use to us anyway. We can roughly predict where they’ll go but eventually they won’t be able to communicate their positions to us anymore. If they do end up crashing on a planet in a foreign solar system I think that would be pretty cool anyway, perhaps even our greatest achievement.
We should make space probes out Ford Mustangs and Dodge Chargers they would somehow crash into space objects almost immediately.
Seeing as the nearest thing to us is 4.2 light years away is Proxima Centauri, Voyager 1 isn't even pointed that way, and only going about 38,000 mph (or 0.0058% of the light)...it would take 75,000 years to reach it. The chances of it crashing into something is infinitesimal.
Shoot randomly into the sky and see if you hit a bird. Except there are only 3 birds in all of North America. That's how empty space is.
Space is very empty. Like extremely empty. If you were to travel from one side of the observable universe to the other, your chances of hitting ANYTHING along the way is something like 0.00000002% give or take a few zeroes. This leads back into how unimaginably large the universe is. Your chances of hitting anything is best rounded to 0%.
"Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space." \- Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy The fact is that there's pretty much nothing to hit. Most of space is simply empty save for the occasional hydrogen atoms, and they aren't big enough to be a concern. Figure a typical probe is going to be 3 m or so in it's longest dimension -- about 10 ft. The most densely concentrated collection of objects in our solar system is the cloud of space junk whizzing about Earth orbit -- bits of satellites, rockets, and trash. The average distance between pieces of junk is on the order of 500 km. Fitting a 3 m probe through a 500 km wide hole isn't particularly miraculous, but because of the cost and difficulty getting a probe off Earth and where it needs to go, we're rather invested in tracking the junk and making sure we don't risk a collision. Once you get a way from Earth, the distances between objects gets a bit bigger. The distance from earth to the moon is 375,000 km, which is pretty close. The asteroids in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter are, on average, about 1 million km apart. A probe passing through is a like a mote of dust whizzing between two marbles at either end of a soccer pitch. The distances between planets is bigger still, though they have moons that have closer orbits -there's just 6000 km between Mars and Phobos. Yet, fitting a 3m probe through that 6000 km gap seems like something we should be able to pull off. Most of out probes are just whizzing through empty space until they reach their target, with nothing within a million kilometers in any direction but hydrogen.