SpaceX's Starlink May Be Keeping the Ozone From Healing, Research Finds
SpaceX's Starlink May Be Keeping the Ozone From Healing, Research Finds
SpaceX's growing Starlink megaconstellation could be hindering the Earth's ozone layer from healing itself, researchers find.
Abstract from the paper in the article:
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2024GL109280
Large constellations of small satellites will significantly increase the number of objects orbiting the Earth. Satellites burn up at the end of service life during reentry, generating aluminum oxides as the main byproduct. These are known catalysts for chlorine activation that depletes ozone in the stratosphere. We present the first atomic-scale molecular dynamics simulation study to resolve the oxidation process of the satellite's aluminum structure during mesospheric reentry, and investigate the ozone depletion potential from aluminum oxides. We find that the demise of a typical 250-kg satellite can generate around 30 kg of aluminum oxide nanoparticles, which may endure for decades in the atmosphere. Aluminum oxide compounds generated by the entire population of satellites reentering the atmosphere in 2022 are estimated at around 17 metric tons. Reentry scenarios involving mega-constellations point to over 360 metric tons of aluminum oxide compounds per year, which can lead to significant ozone depletion.
PS: wooden satellites can help mitigate this https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-01456-z
SpaceX has been receptive to design changes to starlink in the past to minimize impact, like decreasing reflectivity and reflection angles for astronomers. They might be receptive to moving to different alloy for the body construction.
Magnesium comes to mind that would be light but expensive. Steel alloys might be cheap and heavy options for later when starship is operational. Would those have similar effects on ozone, or is it only the aluminum oxides?
Magnesium oxides can also serve as a catalyst for lots of reactions, but I'm not sure if it will have the same effect in this specific context, I'd guess it would.
That's why I added the link to the wooden satallites, that also reduces the metal debris somewhat and reduces other effects like radio interference.
Wood is interesting, but the article doesn't address off gassing at all, which is a huge problem for communication satellites. Is there a way to keep the wood from off gassing? For 3d prints in vacuum, they metal coat them to keep the gas inside. Or maybe you could resin soak them? With hopefully an extremely UV stable resin. But I didn't know what the weight trade looks like then, resin is heavy.
But if you're looking composites anyway, carbon fiber would be another great option. Lightweight but with a few manufacturing constraints. But should burn up to carbon dioxide on reentry.
I feel like it shouldn't even have to be said out loud that gravity and weight correlate, but their orbit would be heavily impacted by replacing aluminium with five times as much steel for the same durability. You might be able to get away with slightly less if you consider the steel has more heat resistance, but idk.
Yeah you'd need to put up fewer sats per launch. But they might still have enough lift capacity on starship to do that.
So... Let me get this straight... The satellites burning up are essentially creating aluminum chemtrails that my mother-in-law keeps going on about?
Well yeah ever since you guys forced us to stop doing the airplane chemtrails, we’ve been out of business.
Aluminum is neurotoxic so yes
Before anyone jumps on the Anti-Musk train, read the article, please. They admit that they don't understand the complications that could arise and that they don't have any hard figures for the damage being caused. I'll be the first to jump in and say that it's probably a bad thing to just let metals burn in in atmo, but let's make sure we discuss the facts, and not just the politics of the potential polluter.
Ah yes, the usual method of waiting until the issue becomes confirmed and also way too severe to fix instead of acting on precaution and harming profits of private companies. What could go wrong?
Yeah, PFAS comes to mind. It took decades to confirm it's harmful to humans but at this point it is everywhere and hard to get rid of. Worst part is they try to use other chemicals to replace PFAS, but again how harmful they are we don't know and we will learn that decades later too because companies don't want to make long term research before releasing the product. Enviroment shouldn't be a billionaire's testing ground.
There is a line somewhere I think. Like people weren't 100% sure the atomic bomb won't ignite the atmosphere (it's only very unlikely), but they still tested it. Similarly the probability of creating micro blackholes at LHC is not zero either, yet they still ran it.
If we have to make sure everything is 100% safe before we can do anything, we will be stuck with the status quo.
I don't know how that is usual in your mind. Since from my perspective I see it constantly.
As opposed to acting before you understand the effects of your actions? Neither seem like good choices.
Probably the best option would be to research harder. Make the polluter fund a much larger scale research program to understand the problem and viable solutions as quickly as possible.
Ah yes, the usual method of waiting until the issue becomes confirmed and also way too severe to fix instead of acting on precaution and harming profits of private companies.
No, but as even them don't understand what the complications are and how much the damages could be, maybe to wait to have at least some hard number looks like a good idea.
What could go wrong?
And what could go wrong if we start to fight a problem that we don't understand how big it is, maybe using the wrong solution on a wrong scale ?
I was actually reviewing the O3 depletion process https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chlorine_monoxide and Cl only stops reacting with O3 when it ends up as ClO2, but that is rare, because ClO usually is too short-lived to react with another Cl into Cl2O, so it may be possible that a catalyst like Al2O3 could actually clean up Cl interfering with the ozone layer along with the effect of speeding up the nefarious reaction with O3 :D
Guys, let's not jump into conclusions. I'd say that it is not a real issue until at least a billion people have died from it.
If they don't have grounds to accuse SpaceX then SpaceX can sue them for defamation. SpaceX doesn't need YOU to defend them.
OP listed the referenced study in the description, it has "hard numbers" from simulations and citations to many other studies as well.
Another thing Elon is screwing up on
It's like he became the opposite of King Midas.
I don't know, maybe it is like Midas. The things he touches turn into something coveted, and therefore valuable, but also of little to no practical use, just like gold.
Quite possible. Let's fix our ISPs so that all of humanity has access to bandwidth priced to a value that they can afford for their area. A huge project that means lots of union jobs and an economic payoff for decades. If we pull this off Starlink won't have any customers except very marginal cases.
Fix the problem directly instead of fixing the solution unintended side effects
Gee, where are the boatload of billions that the US congress passed for nationwide broadband?
Fucking ripoff telecon companies.
Why not both? I kinda want Starlink for road trips and camping. As in, pull into a national park, set up camp, do normal Internet things, then go hike the park the next day or whatever. I could even work from a national park if I really wanted to, which would be really cool.
You would think space engineers would‘ve run those numbers before sending tens of thousands of them in orbit. It‘s really annoying that we can only hope for the best at this point.
I fully expect they did. I think this is partly why Elon went from "there's no planet B" to a Saudi simp. Way to much money to be made to waste time on the concerns of scientists and the welfare of the planet.
I was just worried about Kessler syndrome and just felt relaxed that their orbits were low enough to naturally decay and never become a permanent problem. What this research seems to show is that the aluminum oxide dust does not settle in days/weeks, but it is fine enough to stay there for decades :/
Why would you think that?
When I fire up the grill, I don't do calculations on how much weight in CO2 I'm putting into the air and then extrapolate that to find the total mass of CO2 that grills generate globally. I usually just make burgers.
That space engineer made sure that they were on the right side of the rocket equation and they made it to orbit (which is hard on its own).
I agree that thorough environmental studies really ought to be happening, but I'm not surprised that aspects got missed.
They do, and did. Perhaps this reaction with the ozone layer just hasn't been considered until now.
it's not just musk, Bezos too.
About 48 tons of meteorites enter the atmosphere every day. I couldn't find the elemental distribution, but I'd guess there is some aluminum in there. How much of an increase is 14 tons aluminum per year over the many tons of aluminum entering the atmosphere already? That might be good to get a rough estimate of how impactful this is.
Even assuming the meteorites are 100% aluminum it's a 30% increase which is quite significant.
From a short google search apparently only ~8% of asteroids in our solar system are metal rich which is mostly iron nickel. Rarer metals can be as rare as 100 grams per ton.
Which means of the 48 tons only 4.8 kilos could be aluminum. Compared to that the 14 tons would be a whopping ~3000% increase.
Isn't it 48 tons of meteorites per day vs 14 tones of satellites per year?
Where are you getting a 30% increase?
Adding 14 tons a year to the 17,520 (48 x 365) tons of meteorites per year is a 0.07% increase (assuming that every meteorite is 100% aluminum and burns up entirely, which is definitely not reality)
Al is a major element in the solar system. Most rocks have Al2O3 on the order of 3-10 wt.%. That includes chondrites (the major class of meteorite) which have plenty of feldspar, a mineral that's like 20 wt.% Al2O3, and calcium-aluminium inclusions (CAIs), which are as their name suggests, Al-rich.
4.8kg per day gives 1.75 tons per year, giving an 800% increase. That's still really big, thanks for tracking down the numbers.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abundance_of_the_chemical_elements
That article discusses how to determine the average distribution of the elements. Considering that only 2% is not Hydrogen or Helium, I would guess that the amount of aluminum in those meteorites is either not burned up in the atmosphere, or is negligible enough to not make a difference.
Considering that only 2% is not Hydrogen or Helium
I assume that claim comes from:
The abundance of chemical elements in the universe is dominated by the large amounts of hydrogen and helium which were produced during the Big Bang. Remaining elements, making up only about 2% of the universe
I kind of doubt that hydrogen or helium comprise 98% of the mass of the 48 tons of meteors per day. I kinda suspect that the 48 tons of meteors are comprised almost entirely of "other" elements.
damn, starlink is my only way to access the internet. I wish there were an alternative that's usable. Traditional access providers don't work and cell data is extremely slow and there's no coverage where I live. I pay for Starlink with a bitter taste
Might I enquire as to where this remote location might be?
Like on a general basis, no need for addresses.
As a Finn I'm forever spoiled in terms of wireless coverage. We got tons of solitary forests. But you can get an internet connection in literally all of them.
97% of the country gets 4g. And not of the people. The country.
I live in rural California. We only just this year are able to pick up a faint LTE signal. I think it might get us a very unstable 1-2 Mbps if we hold the phone just right. We have no cable, DSL or other land-based options and because of the topography can't pick up the local wireless provider, which is very expensive anyway - like $175/month for 50/5
So without Starlink our only options are crappy regular satellite providers like Hughesnet which impose very low quotas - 10 GB monthly for day time usage - and have insane latency.
It bugs the shit out of me I have to give money to that fuckwit but without it we live in the dark ages.
We're in Mayotte. Two undersea cables connect us to nearby continents (cf submarinecablemap.com) but they're down most of the time. We haven't had a connection in the last six months so we finally subbed to Starlink. Well, strictly speaking there was a connection but it would take anywhere between 5mn to 15mn to load the text of a static webpage, no images or anything else... forget about sending data, using forums... I had to get out and walk uphill for a minute or two to use my phone's cell data
Rural US most likely. Place is too big, too few people to be worth for comoanies to invest. So many places only have 1-2 providers at best, afaik.
What about the remaining 3%?
Also, to (hopefully) answer your question:
Ignore Finland/Europe for a second and look at North America. The US has many population centers along the coasts and very few in the west inland. People still live there, so they need internet access, but oftentimes there aren't enough people to justify expanding coverage across such a huge area without subsidizing said coverage with government funds or other customers, so there are bound to be coverage gaps if you don't have unlimited money to throw at the problem. If you take a look at Canada, you can see how much worse the problem is as they have even more area to cover, and it reflects in the fact that they have some of the highest wireless prices in the world.
Also remember that these are wealthy countries. Plenty of other regions have the same problems with population density and physical size, and they can't throw money at the problem like we can.
The TL;DR is that these deadzones exist in a ton of places because a lot of low-population areas are physically huge.
At least one hour outside any Midwest city.
We are in the mountains in rural Alberta
Majority of Canada is like that
burned wood in the upper atmosphere also catalyzes ozone depletion That's why it was bad putting CFCs up there in the first place, almost everything catalyzes these reactions
Oh, so no Chlorine ever truly gets locked away from the ozone cycle...smoke particles will just keep reactivating it 😞
I thought that the idea was to stop crashing old satellites into earth and instead require they maintain enough propellent to move themselves off into a graveyard orbit.
That works for satellites in a Geostationary orbit, but Starlink satellites are in a Low Earth Orbit (LEO). While LEO is in space there are a tiny amount of atmospheric particles there which creates a tiny amount of drag. Things in LEO will come back down eventually.
So they take 17 tons of emissions (from all satellites, not just starlink), which are basically nothing on an atmospheric scale, then extrapolate that to 360 and start freaking out. Peak quality journalism.
its not a jurnalist coming up with this its from a paper. And as far as i understand they took information on satelite mass increasefrom another paper which had a "a comprehensive body of data"(https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2020AGUFMGC0420004H)
Thanks Elon
One thing to note - The science is still calculating. Yet. SpaceX (and presumably others) are allowed to continue and increase what they're doing. This is the bass ackwards way to protect future us.
Its the same mentality as driving in a random direction for 20 minutes while someone looks in the car for the map on the off chance that when you get the map open you'll be where you wanted to be anyway.
It has the potential (and at this point, just the potential) for planet level changes, and is being done by one group. Should I, a random dude, be able to do something that might possibly affect the entire planet, and the planet as a whole just have to wait and see how it turns out?
The hopeful thought that its probably nothing, before anyone can prove that it's probably nothing, makes a bet where the short term wins are mine, but any long term losses are everyone else's.
At least the article came with the numbers. Given what I regularly read about all the pollutants we daily pump into the atmosphere, the numbers in this article for the materials being atomized is...well, they're very small in scale.
Basically, if a few hundred tons per year is hurting the ozone (and other things), just imagine what the billions of tons per year of emissions does.
The point here is not that aluminum oxide "pollutes" on its own, it is that it "speeds up" the harmful reaction between ozone and any chlorine (like CFC) "pollutants" up there without being consumed, so it keeps acting over 30 years. It makes all the pollutants you mention "more effective" at depleting ozone.
Its good to keep an eye out for new sources of pollution, but the possible ozone depletion from satellites burning up is a tiny tiny fraction of what we're doing on Earth right now for pollutants.
The roughly 10-centimetre-long cube is made of magnolia-wood panels and has an aluminium frame, solar panels, circuit boards and sensors. The panels incorporate Japanese wood-joinery methods that do not rely on glue or metal fittings.
When LignoSat plunges back to Earth, after six months to a year of service, the magnolia will incinerate completely and release only water vapour and carbon dioxide
Huh? I’m confused.
heh, yea, the satellites are not just wood for sure, they goofed. But it's less metals, which helps.
The article linked at he bottom has a picture and more info on the wooden satellites.
https://futurism.com/the-byte/japanese-scientists-wooden-satellite
This is the best summary I could come up with:
While researchers have largely focused on the pollutants being released by rockets as they launch, we've only begun to understand the implications of having thousands of retired and malfunctioning satellites burn up in the atmosphere.
"Only in recent years have people started to think this might become a problem," said coauthor and University of Southern California astronautics researcher Joseph Wang in a statement.
Since it's practically impossible to get accurate readings from the kind of pollutants satellites release as they scream back through the atmosphere, scientists can only estimate their effects on the surrounding environment.
By studying how common metals used in the construction of satellites interact with each other, the team estimated that the presence of aluminum increased in the atmosphere by almost 30 percent in 2022 alone.
They found that a 550-pound satellite generates roughly 66 pounds of aluminum oxide nanoparticles during reentry, which would take up to 30 years to drift down into the stratosphere.
"The environmental impacts from the reentry of satellites are currently poorly understood," the researchers note in their paper.
The original article contains 371 words, the summary contains 176 words. Saved 53%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
Buy a ticket to mars. Problem solved.
Give calyx some airwaves.
ah but it helps Elon make money (maybe?) and Elon knows what is best for us, so that is fine
futurism article... seriously?
There was the scientific article and the abstract in the body of the post if you wanted to read it, wtf more do you want?
How about.. HAARP? I would place my focus on HAARP.
As fun as it might be to harp (ha) on them. It's unlikely that a 30 year old atmospheric research station is a bond style earthquake machine.
What about it?
That's just dumb virtue signalling crap.
Ozone hoax just like global warming
It's some small comfort that a conservative's ability to construct a complete sentence is matched by their ability to formulate a complete thought.
In a different timeline this would be obvious sarcasm. We are not in that timeline.
Y'know... it's better to let everyone think you're an idiot than to prove everyone right by saying something this stupid.
Only you know the truth!
Enjoy your skincancer
Next thing they are going to say asbestos is dangerous even though I've touched it before without dying!
And in a recent survey, 9 out of 10 tobacco executives say, "Don't worry about safety, just have another smooth tasting premium filtered cigarette!"