3 ms·
I strongly suspect it's the latter - since "Every day, Earth is bombarded with more than 100 tons of dust and sand-sized particles." [1] and the satellites burn
by gpm 6y ago
I strongly suspect it's the latter - since "Every day, Earth is bombarded with more than 100 tons of dust and sand-sized particles." [1] and the satellites burning up aren't going to approach that mass simply due to launch costs.
[1] https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/asteroids/overview/fastfacts.html https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/asteroids/overview/fastfa...
- senectus1 6y agothe difference for me is that the stuff that we put up there is highly refined materials. not just a load of unrefined rock dust. I wonder what the stats of Uranium/Plutonium we let "burn up" in the biosphere is compared to stuff we get while cruising through space is...
- modeless 6y agoThere is no uranium or plutonium in these satellites, nor anything else radioactive. On the other hand, according to [1] the abundances on this page multiplied by [2] 40000 tons per year, the stuff naturally hitting the atmosphere each year includes 0.3 kg uranium, 1.6 kg thorium, 3 kg radioactive isotopes of potassium, 10 kg mercury, 18 kg cadmium, 50 kg lead, 72 kg arsenic, and 120 tons of chromium, among other things. This stuff burns up in the atmosphere all day long, and has for billions of years. [1] https://periodictable.com/Properties/A/MeteoriteAbundance.v.log.html https://periodictable.com/Properties/A/MeteoriteAbundance.v.... [2]https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007%2F978-1-4419-8694-8_5 https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007%2F978-1-4419-8694-...