[bwestergard]

If someone has the time, I'd love to see the total amount of lead added to the atmosphere by burning up satellites compared to the amount from other anthropogenic sources.

[adastra22]

Rough napkin math would be negligible impact. The amount of lead in a satellite is very small, if not actually zero. The amount of lead added by burning coal is about 30 tonnes per day.

[everforward]

There is almost definitely a small, negligible amount of lead in the solder in them. Eg NASA requires a small (single digit I think) percentage of lead to prevent tin whiskering.

[JumpCrisscross]

> almost definitely a small, negligible amount of lead in the solder in them

Emphasis on negligible. Assuming 0.07 to 0.28 ppm lead [1] in meteoroids, space is dosing us with half to 2 kg a year [2].

[1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/001670...

[2] https://earthsky.org/space/tons-of-extraterrestrial-dust-fal...