Near-Earth asteroids discovered per year

As astronomers have discovered more near-Earth asteroids per year, more cyclists have been killed on American roads, a correlation that connects cosmic threats to local dangers with the kind of scope that makes you appreciate how little control we have over either. The coefficient is 0.865 across eighteen years, during which both the sky and the street got more dangerous—or at least, more documented. The asteroids are found, the cyclists are lost, and the chart spans from the Kuiper Belt to the bike lane.

Near-Earth asteroid discoveries grew from about 800 per year in 2005 to over 3,000 by 2022, driven by improved telescope networks (Pan-STARRS, Catalina Sky Survey) and the dedicated funding of NASA's Planetary Defense program. Cycling fatalities grew from about 780 to over 1,000 during the same period. Both trends are fundamentally stories about observation infrastructure: we find more asteroids because we look harder, and more cyclists die because more of them exist on roads that were not designed for them. The shared variable is investment—in telescopes on one hand and in urban cycling infrastructure (or lack thereof) on the other.

Eighteen years of asteroids and cycling deaths growing together is a correlation that stretches from space to the street and means nothing across the distance. We discover more threats in the sky because our telescopes improve, and we create more danger on the ground because our roads do not. The asteroid is tracked. The cyclist is not. Both problems have known solutions.