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In the recently released movie Passengers the ship hits a chunk of rock about the size of a softball that punches through multiple layers of hull and creates a problem.

Assuming that a spaceship is traveling away from Earth at near light speed through interstellar space for a distance of 2 to 10 light years is there a significant probability that it would hit a rock that could do serious damage?

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  • $\begingroup$ What does this have to do with dark matter? $\endgroup$
    – Phiteros
    Commented Dec 28, 2016 at 20:55
  • $\begingroup$ It's utterly impossible to make any kind of sensible calculation about what probability there is of an unknown fictional spaceship design being damaged by an unknown distribution of rocks in space. Any random number between 0 and 1 is just as good as any answer we could give. $\endgroup$
    – StephenG - Help Ukraine
    Commented Dec 28, 2016 at 21:19
  • $\begingroup$ @StephenG How do you know what's possible or impossible? Just because you don't know how to make such a calculation doesn't mean it is impossible. $\endgroup$
    – Tyler Durden
    Commented Dec 28, 2016 at 21:34
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    $\begingroup$ It shouldn't be too difficult to give an order-of-magnitude estimate, and in astronomy we're often quite happy with that. The size distribution and number density of asteroids is not unknown. The cross section of a spaceship is known. The speed doesn't matter, only the total path length. And once you're outside the Solar System the chance, or risk, of hitting a rock is virtually zero. I'm on a phone now, though, so I won't do it, but I agree with the OP, no need for snide remarks. $\endgroup$
    – pela
    Commented Dec 28, 2016 at 23:28
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    $\begingroup$ This could be rephrased as an astronomy question (on the distribution of matter in interstellar space) but as it concerns space travel, and so is off topic. $\endgroup$
    – James K
    Commented Dec 29, 2016 at 3:03

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