Two incredibly talented students led the project. We figured out a much less hand-wavy analytical way to calculate close approach rates using real data from public catalogues. And then we also ran n-body simulations to double check. They agree very well! And are really scary!!

In the densest part of LEO (Starlink), there are closer than 1km approaches every 15 minutes. 1km sounds like a lot, but remember everything in LEO is moving at 7km PER SECOND

A plot from Thiele et al. 2025 showing average time between encounters that are closer than 1km at different altitudes in Low Earth Orbit.  It's mostly in the 1 day range, except where Starlink's very dense orbital shell are, where it goes down below every 15 minutes.
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