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SpaceX's Starlink May Be Keeping the Ozone From Healing, Research Finds

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

autotldr Bot ,

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!

Beaver ,
@Beaver@lemmy.ca avatar

Another thing Elon is screwing up on

Aqarius ,

It's like he became the opposite of King Midas.

Murdoc ,

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.

chemical_cutthroat ,
@chemical_cutthroat@lemmy.world avatar

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.

nevemsenki ,

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?

chemical_cutthroat ,
@chemical_cutthroat@lemmy.world avatar

Nah, this is a different method. It's the one where we get all of the facts before we take action. Maybe you aren't up on it, but knee-jerk is so 1700s.

OsrsNeedsF2P ,

We don't have to wait until it's "fully confirmed" to start being concerned about it. Remember climate change denial? We were in the "we don't know if humans are causing it" phase for a while.

I also agree, let's not jump on the anti-Musk team for this, but satellites burning up has always been a rather obvious source of pollution, and it's good to see more discussion on it

GoodEye8 ,

We were in the "we don't know if we're causing it" phase for a long time because big oil knew about global warming and deliberately ran disinformation campaigns so they could keep profiteering. Had Exxon done the right thing in the 70s we wouldn't have this looming crisis.

Peppycito ,
@Peppycito@sh.itjust.works avatar

And now we're in the "is burning up thousands of satellites bad?" phase of space exploration. I'll be waiting for spacex to do the right thing.

GoodEye8 ,

Don't get me wrong. I'm not defending corporations here. I'm simply stating the fact that climate change denial wasn't the case of waiting until it's "fully confirmed", it was pretty much confirmed back in the 70s. They even had predictions for the next century on how things will go bad if nothing is done and the last time I checked we were pretty on course with their predictions. When it came to the scientific consensus, it was pretty much "fully confirmed". It was simply the public opinion where it wasn't "fully confirmed" because corporations deliberately ran disinformation to make it seem like scientists didn't know what they were talking about.

But this paper isn't really confirming anything. The paper itself says that the model does not account for all the factors and to literally quote the paper:

As reentry rates increase, it is crucial to further explore the concerns highlighted in this study.

This paper is not presenting a final conclusion, it's presenting concerns that need further studies. let's wait for further studies and if there's scientific consensus about it being an issue I'm all for bringing out the pitchforks. In the mean let's keep calm and dread over the doom and gloom that is climate change.

hglman ,

It's highlighting a potential significant risk. Major ozone loss is much worse than lack of internet. The high uncertainty of the paper is easily offset by the harm that would be caused if the paper is correct.

intensely_human ,

Well, maybe it’s offset. It’s hard to say whether A > B or B < A when you don’t know the value of either one.

GoodEye8 ,

So what are we supposed to do, halt all space flights until we figure this out?

Without further research going into how much damage it's doing there's no way to say what our next steps should be. Maybe everything we're doing is still within acceptable limits? Maybe we need tighter regulation on materials going into space. Maybe some materials need to be outright banned.

The only reasonable thing we can do is study it further. Expecting instant result based on one study that only outlines a potential risk is quite frankly just doomerist behavior.

intensely_human ,

So you’re saying that in the 70s they had predictions about how things will go bad for the next century?

Where are these predictions? It’s been 50 years so at least some of these predictions should be checkable now.

I would feel so much better if I could see some examples of climate science predictions being proven accurate.

GoodEye8 ,

It's pretty public knowledge by now. If you search "ExxonMobil climate prediction" I'm sure you can find a starting point. I recommend finding all the Exxon papers because they're quite eye opening.

intensely_human ,

Yeah, and now despite what the scientists say, everyone believes climate change is going to render Earth uninhabitable, and we are taking massive steps to avoid the problem as if it were an existential threat, which the science again does not support.

We’re treating climate change as if it were as serious as a planet killer asteroid, and we’re massively violating people’s rights as if it were.

OsrsNeedsF2P ,

Can't tell if this is sarcasm, orr

gaael , (edited )

Like maybe wait a few years and finance some science to check that your mega constellation of satellites (built to fail after only a few years to make sure your rocket company never goes out of work) won't be a fucking nuisance on so many levels before you actually launch them ?
This "get all the facts before taking action" ?

Edit: I think I knee-jerked

chemical_cutthroat ,
@chemical_cutthroat@lemmy.world avatar

Oh, you mean a study on the Satellite Internet Constellations that have been in orbit since the 1990s, a full 30 years before Starlink launched? As with nearly everything else, Musk isn't the first to do whatever he does, he's just the loudest. If Starlink hadn't launched we would still be facing the same problems. Thankfully, he's a big enough ass that he makes a easy target for these kinds of things.

gaael ,

Maybe I didn't get my facts straight, but iirc there are around 7.5k satellites up there, with starlink current count about 5.5k. And I think I read they got the greenlight for the 7.5k gen 2 sats launches.
That looks like a scale change to me. Associated with the short lifespan (which contrasts with the situation 30 years ago, where launches were more expensive), it's kind of a new situation and should have warranted a more careful approach.

So musk isn't the first one to launch satellites, I agree. But the way it's done is kinda new, and mostly on the worse side. And I'm not saying the old way was good, and not absolving previous actors from responsability in the pollution.

nevemsenki ,

Sure, PFAS were also considered a nonsignificant issue until they weren't, only it's too late to unfuck it now. Well, no harm in generating more potential ticking time bombs I guess.

intensely_human ,

“All the facts” is counterfactual, superstitious thinking. There is no such thing as “all the facts”, except in game theory examples like tic-tac-toe.

In all realms other than small mathematical models, there’s no circumstance under which one has all the facts.

puchaczyk ,

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.

intensely_human ,

So if moving from PFAS to alternate chemicals means moving foolishly into untested chemicals, why didn’t they wait to test them? Were they forced to make the change?

gian ,

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 ?

Peppycito ,
@Peppycito@sh.itjust.works avatar

maybe to wait to have at least some hard number looks like a good idea.

Good plan. So they're holding off on starlink launches to let the science catch up, right?

dustyData ,

Perfect is the enemy of good.

If it is worth doing, it is worth getting it done, even if we aren't 100% certain or ready on a lot of things. Doctors don't wait for the worst before starting treatment. Specially if corrections carry none or way less risks than what is currently being done.

gian ,

Perfect is the enemy of good.

I agree on this.

If it is worth doing, it is worth getting it done, even if we aren’t 100% certain or ready on a lot of things.

From the article it seems we are not even 10% certain. In summary, we don't understand (yet) the problem, we have no clue on how complex is, we have no hard number to tell us how big it is.
I agree, something need to be done. But for now the "something" is just to try to understand better the problem, or at least how big it is.

Doctors don’t wait for the worst before starting treatment.

True, but they start treatment when they know what they need to cure or at least they have solid evidence that indicate something, not before.

Specially if corrections carry none or way less risks than what is currently being done.

Hard to decide that corrections carry lower risks of something we don't understand.

hglman ,

Doing scientific experiments to understand the risks is worth doing.

intensely_human ,

One of the big risks of not having a global communications satellite network is that people can get cut off from the internet by land-based ISPs loyal to whatever local government they’re trying to be free of.

So there’s a danger of just saying “no satellite clusters”.

We’re always balancing dangers against other dangers. There’s danger in not acting, not growing too.

Cocodapuf ,

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.

nialv7 ,

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.

intensely_human ,

We will die of starvation because nothing is 100% safe, so waiting until we find that level of safety means we just won’t do anything.

afraid_of_zombies ,

I don't know how that is usual in your mind. Since from my perspective I see it constantly.

Gsus4 OP , (edited )
@Gsus4@programming.dev avatar

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

FiniteBanjo ,

The irony of a wikipedia expert agreeing with a tabloid skeptic.

Gsus4 OP , (edited )
@Gsus4@programming.dev avatar

Why did you write that? What do you gain or anyone reading from that comment? Who are you performing for? Where is the audience? Are you bored and I'm your little punching bag? If you know, contribute and tell us if and why I am wrong and I will welcome it, if you don't or it is not worth the effort, just stfu, nobody needs your shit snark.

FiniteBanjo ,

I wanted to reinforce good behavior, punish bad behavior.

Gsus4 OP , (edited )
@Gsus4@programming.dev avatar

Nah man, that's just toxic hurtful criticism. Let people brainstorm and just let go of the gavel.

FiniteBanjo ,

Sure I admit that your mistakes were purely imaginary and we can all pretend you never made them to hide your shame.

Gsus4 OP ,
@Gsus4@programming.dev avatar

o7

intensely_human ,

You didn’t mention any mistakes though

dustyData ,

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.

FiniteBanjo , (edited )

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.

Rhaedas ,

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.

Gsus4 OP , (edited )
@Gsus4@programming.dev avatar

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.

Rhaedas ,

I didn't see a mention in the paper on what amount the bump up would be with the maximum amount of AlO2 distributed in the layers of the atmosphere where the reactions would occur. When emissions are in the trillions of tons, I wonder if it would even be measurable.

Gsus4 OP , (edited )
@Gsus4@programming.dev avatar

When emissions are in the trillions of tons, I wonder if it would even be measurable.

emission of what? There aren't trillions of tons of Chlorine in the stratosphere (that's what interferes with O3) being pumped into the atmosphere. Are you thinking of CO2?

I doubt anybody can give a confident answer today about the value of the effect that a kg of Al2O3 can have per ton of atmosphere at ozone layer height, because that would involve not just doing what they did in the paper, but also figuring out what "shape" the Al2O3 particles have to know what their adsorption surface would be, for e.g. zeolites this can be 16m2 per gram. e.g. https://www.sciencenews.org/article/earth-extraterrestrial-space-dust-weight-meteorite but maybe it can be simply extrapolated from analogous metallic meteorite dust samples :/

Rhaedas ,

Carbon monoxide also contribute to ozone breakdown, and there are additional manmade substances similar to CFCs with chlorine and bromine that are still leaked. Environmental changes in the Antarctic also can increase ozone depletion as well as longer lasting cold air in the stratosphere (observed in 2020 in the Arctic). The mention of emissions was just to suggest that smaller reactions can get lost in all the other problems we have created, although wildfire increases are raising CO.

partial_accumen ,

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.

JohnDClay , (edited )

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?

Gsus4 OP , (edited )
@Gsus4@programming.dev avatar

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.

JohnDClay ,

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.

TopRamenBinLaden , (edited )

I just read an interesting research article from NASA that shows that carbon fiber survives reentry better than our previous scientific consensus claimed.

Some carbon fiber will burn up into carbon dioxide, but a good chunk of it will surprisingly survive reentry conditions. I think you are very right that it should be a better material to use for starlink.

FiniteBanjo ,

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.

JohnDClay ,

Yeah you'd need to put up fewer sats per launch. But they might still have enough lift capacity on starship to do that.

intensely_human ,

When there’s drag involved it’s different, but in vacuum there’s no relationship between weight and orbit.

Are you referring to the effects of upper atmospheric drag on the orbital maintenance requirements?

Malfeasant ,

Weight does not affect orbit. It affects the amount of fuel needed to reach orbit, and therefore cost, but not the orbit itself.

FiniteBanjo ,

Exactly, it needs a higher angular momentum at the same altitude.

tyler ,

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.

Gsus4 OP ,
@Gsus4@programming.dev avatar

heh, yea, the satellites are not just wood for sure, they goofed. But it's less metals, which helps.

bstix ,

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

tyler ,

uh. that article has less information? Unless you're seeing something I don't. My comment literally has more information about the satellite than the futurism article.

bstix ,

Your quote is not from the OP article, or maybe it's been changed.

tyler ,

I have two quotes. One from the OP article and the second from the article you linked.

neclimdul ,

Buy a ticket to mars. Problem solved.

CosmoNova ,

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.

Gsus4 OP ,
@Gsus4@programming.dev avatar

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 :/

Cocodapuf ,

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.

Peppycito ,
@Peppycito@sh.itjust.works avatar

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.

treadful ,
@treadful@lemmy.zip avatar

They do, and did. Perhaps this reaction with the ozone layer just hasn't been considered until now.

pewgar_seemsimandroid ,

it's not just musk, Bezos too.

Fedizen ,

Thanks Elon

i_have_no_enemies ,

futurism article... seriously?

Gsus4 OP , (edited )
@Gsus4@programming.dev avatar

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?

SynAcker ,

So... Let me get this straight... The satellites burning up are essentially creating aluminum chemtrails that my mother-in-law keeps going on about?

arin ,

Aluminum is neurotoxic so yes

intensely_human ,

Well yeah ever since you guys forced us to stop doing the airplane chemtrails, we’ve been out of business.

JohnDClay ,

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.

Soma91 ,

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.

gressen ,

The asteroid weights are given per day while the sats per year.

far_university1990 ,

Still only 1752 kg per year

todd_bonzalez ,

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)

JohnDClay ,

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.

ZMoney ,

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.

fine_sandy_bottom ,

Isn't it 48 tons of meteorites per day vs 14 tones of satellites per year?

HubertManne ,

I would put money down the meteorites are below 30% aluminum so I can't see it being less than doubling.

JohnDClay ,

48 tons per day, so it'd need to be less than 0.08% aluminum to double it.

HubertManne ,

ah. missed the per day vs per year thing.

AngryCommieKender ,

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.

Rivalarrival ,

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.

FJT ,

Ozone hoax just like global warming

Burn_The_Right ,

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.

jorp ,

Only you know the truth!

Snowpix ,
@Snowpix@lemmy.ca avatar

Y'know... it's better to let everyone think you're an idiot than to prove everyone right by saying something this stupid.

noktastrigo ,

In a difference timeline this would be obvious sarcasm. We are not in that timeline.

ugjka ,
@ugjka@lemmy.world avatar

Enjoy your skincancer

Buddahriffic ,

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!"

StaySquared ,

How about.. HAARP? I would place my focus on HAARP.

bbuez ,

What about it?

turmacar ,

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.

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