[ecommerceguy]

"What’s not usual is the atmospheric fallout. The fiery re-entry of even one Gen1 Starlink satellite produces about 30 kilograms of aluminum oxide vapor, a compound that erodes the ozone layer. A new study finds these oxides have increased 8-fold between 2016 and 2022, and the Great Re-entry Event increases this pollution even more.

To put this into perspective: Before the first Starlink launches began in 2019, only about 40 to 50 satellites re-entered per year. SpaceX just brought down ten years' worth in only six months, adding an estimated 15,000 kilograms of aluminum oxide to the upper atmosphere."

https://spaceweather.com/archive.php?view=1&day=05&month=08&...

Shout out to NEKAAL for watching the skys and keeping our little speck of dust a bit safer from the vast reality of space.

[lithocarpus]

https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/202...

Apparently earth soaks up ~400-800 kg of aluminum oxide in cosmic dust each day.

So with 1-2 starlink satellites producing 30kg each dissipate each day, that's adding about 10% to this figure.

I'm not sure if the cosmic dust aluminum finds itself in the same places up there as the dissipating starlink aluminum. Maybe that could be figured out from the above paper.

This could have a significant effect, I don't know.

[prennert]

wow your post gave me a bit of perspective. The distribution might really matter here.

Are those ~400-800 kg of aluminum oxide in cosmic dust each day uniformly distributed, and if not how big are those clouds of aluminum oxide that the earth is travelling through? Those 30kg from the satellites are going to be extremely concentrated and therefore take longer to "soak up".

[lithocarpus]

Yeah, I didn't think much of it at first but you pointing out that the 400-800kg is likely spread widely (if not evenly) across much of the earth's surface while the 30kg is landing in one spot, is an interesting point.

I wonder how much aluminum oxide we get though from disintegrating meteors and other impacts every day. Quick search suggests 50-100t of mass from meteors on average each day - similar total to the dust. Those might be more concentrated and analagous to the starlink satellites.

[terminalshort]

The fact that they quantified everything here except for the amount of ozone this actually destroys tells me that it's completely insignificant.

[ecommerceguy]

I'll refrain my usual snark and just link the same link from the linked article you apparently read.

https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2024JD04...

[quotemstr]

So you're doing the same thing?

Either make a meaningful argument or stop insinuating through omission that there's a real problem here. You're not only insulting the intelligence of your readers but also, thereby, undermining your cause.

The article you linked is garbage. Its authors find (of course not controlling for multiple comparisons) an effect that looks statistically significant if you p-hack it just right, then juxtapose it with overdetermined and badly simulated South polar vortex behavior to create the false impression that these satellites are killing the planet.

The real motivation behind pieces like this is personal enmity towards Elon Musk. It could not be more obvious. These people pollute our intellectual commons and degrade whatever remains of their intellectual honesty to run tendentious pieces that let them tell their friends they're sticking it to bad rocket man.

Why are NOAA and NASA funding this stuff?

[nurettin]

A lot of people including you were oblivious to this significant re-entry event until it appeared in the news.

So off-hand dismissals and taking this personal will not help your case.

Also, since you brought him up, where are the studies of the environmental impact of satellite launches and space debris funded by Elon Musk?

Is the argument "planet big satellite small defund NASA"? In that case I'm going with the article.

[dloy]

Are we going to debate him on his argument or only on his character? Shoot the messenger I guess.

[nurettin]

I would like to see the argument, too.

[AllegedAlec]

What character?

[peterashford]

ad hominem

[refulgentis]

What?

[varenc]

How much ozone is being destroyed by 15000kg of aluminum oxide vapor? Is it a meaningful amount?

On the scale of the Earth, my completely uninformed intuition is that 15k kg of alumina doesn't feel that significant. I'd guess that rocket production and launch emissions are way more harmful. But don't know.

[mensetmanusman]

Earth receives ~50,000 kg/day of cosmic dust (our mid-range assumption), 30 kg is 0.06% of that daily amount.

[a_bonobo]

This is kind of that 'climate change skeptic' argument that CO2 is only a tiny percentage in the atmosphere, 0.04%, so anything humans have done to that tiny percentage is therefore negligible. But we've had a massive impact by increasing that tiny percentage by 50% causing climate change.

[burnt-resistor]

But how much of that is aluminum? Probably <0.5%.

Nit: You're off by about a factor of 3 because it's 14.6 t/day.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/antarctic-study-s...

[lithocarpus]

https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/202...

Apparently around 1.4%.

So the starlink satellites dissipating could increase the aluminum oxide arriving up there by ~10% - depending which numbers are correct I suppose it could be anywhere from like 3-30%.

[_heimdall]

If we're really concerned with heavy metals and particulates added to the atmosphere we should also be considering all of the weather modification projects that go on effectively unregulated.

NOAA collects reports[1] of what is done in the US but they don't officially regulate it. They currently have 1,113 reports publicly available.

[1] https://library.noaa.gov/weather-climate/weather-modificatio...

[casenmgreen]

IIRC there recently was a white paper about the environmental affects of the metallization of the upper atmosphere by satellites - not just those burning up, but the general emission over time of tiny particles of metal from all satellites.

However, quick Google now I can find research which has determined pure rare earth metals in the upper atmosphere coming from satellites and boosters and so on, but nothing about the consequences, and I thought I recalled something about consequences.