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SpaceX punched a hole in the ionosphere
- esquivalience 3y agoSeems like this isn't considered to be a big issue, beyond that it is a very visible thing that instinctively 'feels' like a bad idea. > Rocket engines spray water (H2O) and carbon dioxide (CO2) into the ionosphere, quenching local ionization by as much as 70%. A complicated series of charge exchange reactions between oxygen ions (O+) and molecules from the rocket exhaust produce photons at a wavelength of 6300 Å–the same color as red auroras. > Once rare, ionospheric “punch holes” are increasingly common with record numbers of rocket launches led by SpaceX sending Starlink satellites to low-Earth orbit. Ham radio operators may notice them... These effects may be troublesome, but they are shortlived; re-ionization occurs as soon as the sun comes up again.
- KRAKRISMOTT 3y agoWill excess radiation leak through to Earth during re-ionization?
- Jeff_Brown 3y agoIf the holes are quickly healed by sunlight, and only local to where a satellite is launched, the answer would seem to be no.
- arbuge 3y ago> One famous example occured on August 25, 2017, when a Falcon 9 rocket carrying Taiwan’s FORMOSAT-5 satellite created a hole four times bigger than the state of California. Doesn't sound too local to me.
- Jeff_Brown 3y agoGood point. Deserves some numbers. California's area is about 500 thousand km^2, and the Earth's is about 500 million, which means the side facing the Sun is about 250 million, so we're talking about 0.2% of the area facing the sun. Suppose the hole takes six hours to heal (the article makes it sound like it takes much less), and suppose there's a launch every month (since launches have in the past carried 600 satellites at once, that seems plausible, no?), and suppose the hole lets in twice as much of whatever radiation we would like the ionosphere to keep out. Then that's an increase of 0.2 * (1/4) * (1/30) %, which is less than 0.002% -- that is, an increase by a factor of less than 1.00002. Not negligible, but if the satellites provide a substantial public good, then it seems worth the cost. I feel like due to StarLink's use in Russia-Ukraine war alone, it more than qualifies.
- coldtea 3y ago>so we're talking about 0.2% of the area facing the sun Doesn't sound small at all.
- saagarjha 3y agoRight, but presumably the effects are greater for the people in California?
- onethought 3y agoBecause the hole was similar sized to their state? I guess so, they will have to deal with increased fame and awareness of the size of their state. People in Oregon on the other hand will continue to be snubbed.
- dylan604 3y agoWe'll start seeing placards attached that says it's known to cause
- cdot2 3y agoYeah they get to see red lights and have trouble with HF HAM radio. If youre aware of other effects please share.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- dfox 3y agoOnly insignificantly. Most of the radiation is filtered/diverted by the magnetosphere. The only really practical effect of the disturbance is making the already hard to predict sky-wave propagation of HF even more harder to predict and characterize. Which is today realistically of an interest to HAMs and mostly as an fallback for intelligence agencies and diplomatic services. Edit: It also somewhat changes the scatter/delay characteristics of GNSS, which may or may not cause a somewhat significant error of the GNSS fix (it probably should not, but it can).
- op00to 3y agoWhat about high frequency trading shops?
- dfox 3y agoThat is completely different definition of HF. And if they use radio (lower latency than fiber, in theory and in right circumstances ), it is somewhere between SHF and EHF (C through V in the IEEE nomenclature), ie. what sane person would informally call “microwave”, not HF.
- jrockway 3y agoThere was a thread on here the other day about HF traders using HF radio.
- tomjakubowski 3y agoYes that's right, also known as shortwave radio. https://spectrum.ieee.org/amp/wall-street-tries-shortwave-radio-to-make-highfrequency-trades-across-the-atlantic-2650277134 https://spectrum.ieee.org/amp/wall-street-tries-shortwave-ra...
- dfox 3y agoWell, the article itself does a pretty good job of describing why it is not an exactly good idea. What it does not say (and what probably nobody suggesting that ever though about) is that the sky-wave propagation mode is either about reflection off the ionosphere or refraction effects of the ionosphere, both of which means that the propagation path is significantly longer and in the refraction case over “slower” medium. The resulting latencies are almost certainly large enough that the whole thing does not make sense even before thinking about the bandwidth and frame sizes.
- perihelions 3y agoDon't believe the ionosphere has any role in any sort of radiation absorption, outside of RF?
- angiosperm 3y agoThe Ozone Layer is considerably lower than the Ionosphere proper, and protects all surface life from ionizing solar UV radiation. It most likely is as damaged by rocket exhaust as the ionosphere, and much more slowly healed. That undoubtedly deserves its own article, which will unavoidably be confused with this one and be considered old news.
- reaperman 3y agoWhy would O3 be damaged by H2O? SpaceX rockets are powered by hydrogen and oxygen and produce water as exhaust.
- HPsquared 3y agoKerosene and oxygen.. Anyway it's probably that the exhaust plume will contain reactive species like nitrogen oxides, maybe the water vapour could have a role. It's not a big effect. Hydrazine powered rockets have a much bigger effect (all those nitrogen oxides) and are still not a very big deal.
- pseg134 3y agoIt may not seem like a big issue but it speaks to the attitude of billionaires. I am no longer free to vent personal amounts of coolant from a refrigerator but Elon Musk can punch all of the holes he wants with his expensive rockets.
- katbyte 3y agoVenting refrigerant does actual measurable damage that takes decades to repair, this does not (that we k ow of) and is undone in a single day I get what and agree with what your trying to say but a better comparison is needed
- ddq 3y agoThey stole the commons from us and hold it ransom.
- simonh 3y agoWhere by ‘stole’, you mean granted licensed access to the commons by elected representatives, under strict regulation and monitoring, in order to provide services to the public at competitively bid prices.
- dylan604 3y ago[flagged]
- cj 3y agoI wonder what the total carbon footprint is of the Musk Empire. (Tesla + SpaceX + X + Boring Company + …)
- machdiamonds 3y agoAnd I wonder how many times over Tesla makes up for it.
- W0lfEagle 3y agoZero?
- samstave 3y agoTotally stupid Q: Can we harvest any of this energy>?
- tekla 3y agoSolar Panels
- jakeinspace 3y agoWho measures light wavelengths in angstroms rather than nm?
- thrdbndndn 3y agoI was curious too so I checked Wikipedia [1]. Apparently, angstrom was invented exactly for measuring light wavelength. Its (arguably more common today?) usage for atoms and other microscopic structures actually came after that. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angstrom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angstrom
- jakeinspace 3y agoHuh, learned something new.
- tigershark 3y agoEveryone? It’s the preferred unit for electromagnetic wavelengths.
- ly3xqhl8g9 3y ago[flagged]
- user6723 3y ago[flagged]
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- latchkey 3y agoI saw the launch from southern california. My first ever seeing a rocket go up. It was pretty amazing to watch the thing streak across the sky. Sadly, missed the red glow though.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- nbltanx 3y agoStarlink plans to deploy 12,000 - 42,000 satellites. What if two competitors want to do the same? Can the low earth orbit handle 150,000 satellites that turn into space debris at some point?
- Armisael16 3y agoYes.
- panick21_ 3y agoThe waste, waste majority of sats never turn into space debris. Every single sat that launches today in the West has a deorbit planned. The only sat that turn into space debris will be those that brake unexpectitly and totally unrecoverable. And the Starlink sats are so low that they dont really turn very meaningful debris ever. And in general, yes LEO can handle millions of sats. We have like 150k cars in a single tiny country on earth right now.
- wyldfire 3y agoFreudian slip.
- 3cats-in-a-coat 3y agoCars don’t constantly move thousands miles an hour uncontrollably
- 3y ago
- zgluck 3y agoSo now they'll also have to deal with "preserve the ionosphere" activists who have no clue.
- mcswell 3y agoI saw an earlier article about this on Newsweek, and that's exactly what happened. In fact one poster thought this meant we were "punching holes" in the atmospheres of other planets. The term "punching a hole" is absurd, IMO.
- dotnet00 3y agoIt's however very on point with the embarrassing standards journalism has fallen to, especially science journalism.
- perihelions 3y agoRelated thread, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33762492 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33762492 ("North Korean ICBM launch detected using GPS")
- tamimio 3y ago> Sudden GPS errors can also result from the anomalies. When we fly drones especially BVLOS operations we sometimes encounter some GNSS anomalies, that in some cases we just cancel the mission that day and the next day it’s with no issues. Could it be that’s the reason? Who knows, but it might be an issue later with crewed drones.
- valine 3y agoIf it’s crewed is it still a drone?
- tamimio 3y agoUsually when they carry passengers but with no pilot/s, they get called crewed (or manned) ones, but to be honest, there’s no definitive answer or definition as there’s always a mix, sometimes it’s called unmanned/manned aircraft, unmanned/manned drone, uncrewed/crewed drone, and in Canada they even created their own terminology, RPAS (remotely piloted aircraft system), so take the whole thing with a little grain of salt :)
- jrockway 3y agoIf you have a dual frequency receiver (L1/L2), then the ionospheric error is corrected for. These are very common these days, so probably not the reason.
- tamimio 3y agoWe had similar anomalies with tri-bands gnss drone before (L1, L2, and L5) with multi constellations support, I even remember before we had similar issues with an RTK enabled system. It is puzzling because the next day we would bring the sane drone and systems, and as of nothing happened, and since the problem solve itself we never bothered to investigate more.
- dfox 3y agoThat seems like ground based interference. Today a lot of stuff, including components of the drone itself, can be unintentional L-band radiators. Getting what is probably the cheapest tier of spectrum analyzer and investigating that behavior seems somewhat prudent.
- kristianpaul 3y ago“ The red glow is a sign that the rocket punched a hole in the ionosphere–something SpaceX and others have been doing for years. “
- anon115 3y agoisnt this the layer that protects from the suns cancer causing rays??!?!?!?!?!
- starbase 3y agoNo, you're thinking of the ozone layer.
- angiosperm 3y agoThe ozone layer is considerably lower than the ionosphere. But it is probably equally as damaged by launches, and much, much slower to heal afterward.
- hinkley 3y agoI wonder if this will a) come to nothing, b) result in engine throttling during a phase of the launch, or c) result in launch windows from just before dawn until ?? pm.
- pologreen 3y agoI feel like this isn’t a good thing in the long term Does anyone else feels it’s a good thing?
- bratgpttamer 3y ago> Ham radio operators may notice them when shortwave signals fail to skip over the horizon, shooting through holes instead of bouncing back to Earth. Sudden GPS errors can also result from the anomalies. These effects may be troublesome, but they are shortlived; re-ionization occurs as soon as the sun comes up again. On one hand, Science™ sez it fixes itself every morning. On the other, Elon Bad and Planet Good. So, I'm torn.
- mensetmanusman 3y agoIt’s the early blips of an eventual space faring civilization. The signal might propagate and alert other intelligence that we are attempting something challenging. Hopefully they send help.
- ElectronCharge 3y agoOur radar/radio/TV emissions and nuclear blasts have already provided MUCH bigger “we are here” signs… ;-)
- notJim 3y agolaughs nervously
- ajhurliman 3y agoA technically correct, but insignificant headline which appears dangerous at first glance; yeah that seems par for the course of modern journalism.
- tootie 3y agoThis is blog post by someone who finds it interesting
- rTX5CMRXIfFG 3y agoNot being able to tell the difference between a news article and a blog post is par for the course of modern society.
- PhasmaFelis 3y agoIt's pretty clearly both, being an article posted on a news blog.
- ajhurliman 3y agoIt’s honestly astounding you consider them to be distinct
- ricardobeat 3y agoDifferent eras. Journalism used to be bound by much stricter ethics.
- simondotau 3y agoIt probably was to some extent. But also true is that readership used to have fewer means to question the writing of journalists, or to learn of others' criticisms.
- 93po 3y agoOr truth from fiction, even from supposedly reputable organizations
- eqvinox 3y ago"molecules from the rocket exhaust produce photons at a wavelength of 6300 Å – the same color as red auroras." Anyone else have this use of Ångström trigger an exception in their brain? The unit of default for wavelength is nm, not Å… (1nm=10Å)
- dermesser 3y agoIf you look in another field, the default wavelength (wave number) unit is 1/cm. Meaning, there's not really a default wavelength unit.
- samstave 3y agomy trigger is from like the 1980s or 1990s where angstrom was a computer I couldnt afford...
- sacrosancty 3y ago[dead]
- throwaway4837 3y agoAngstroms are used pretty commonly in molecular/nuclear physics.
- dguest 3y agoI don't know if there's a "default" unit, but most people I interact with would use SI units (i.e. km, m, cm, mm, micron, nm, pm). Maybe more to your point, 630 nm is the same number of characters and a slightly more familiar unit. Writing a wavelength as 6300 angstroms is a bit like saying a marathon is 421,950 cm. Anecdotally I've only really heard angstroms used in material science / condensed matter physics, where most small structures are small integer numbers of angstroms across.
- water9 3y agoPeople are really reaching to smear Elon Musk
- TheDudeMan 3y agoIs this something I can be outraged about?
- yellowapple 3y agoI don't think there's a limit to things you can be outraged about if you set your mind to it.
- Brajeshwar 3y agoWhen is the tentative timeline to be building and launching rockets up from the outer atmosphere? While we occasionally launch payloads of raw materials from earth instead of the regularly launches that we have now?
- yellowapple 3y agoThe sooner we achieve a critical mass of lunar industry, the sooner we'd be able to almost entirely do away with any need for terrestrial launches in the first place (the exception being to get people up).
- ge96 3y agoSweet release that 99.99% bacteria cleanse, wipe across countertop, goneski
- thelit 3y agoLiterally making a dent in the universe
- iefbr14 3y agoAnd how about the dumping of excess fuel in the upper atmosphere?
- nologic01 3y agoCommercial space is a tragedy of the commons in the making. What is its "carrying capacity", who calculated it, who enforces it? What are the long term effects, when do they kick in? What are potential secondary effects or tipping points? Astronomy is already a casualty as the sky stops being "dark". I guess who cares about fundamental knowledge when there is profit to be had.
- throwaway69123 3y agoSpace is alot bigger than you think or make out, the effects on astronomy are short lived while they get into position
- nologic01 3y agoI would take the astronomers opinion [1] on how "big" is space over a throwaway HN shill reassuring me that I am idiot worrying too much. [1] https://www.space.com/astronomers-urged-protect-dark-skies https://www.space.com/astronomers-urged-protect-dark-skies
- throwaway69123 3y agoPeople like you is why I use a throw away
- 93po 3y agoDo the same astronomers also propose banning lights being on at night?
- makeitdouble 3y agoWhile you might have a point, "the impact is too small to worry" is now the meme answer to any problem we should probably worry about before it becomes a huge deal with too big to fail players. The more reassuring answer could be "there's already regulation Y that stops any single company from causing too much damage."
- kfrzcode 3y ago
- PsychoOil 3y ago[dead]
- nikolay 3y agoJust try to extrapolate when tons more rockets punch the skies and let harmful radiation do its toll on life on Earth. We already have tons of junk, nobody has the responsibility to "clean after themselves." Wh would've imagined that the plastic bottles that are now in every river, in seas, and oceans will pollute the entire planet with "benign" micro- and nanoplastics. We humans are stupid. We always underestimate the consequences of small stuff that simply adds up over time. This is a pattern. We polluted the planet with forever chemicals, lead, and tons of other pollutants that our descendants will have to deal with and suffer from! All this needs to be regulated, a risk-benefits analysis made, and there needs to be a huge excise tax for all such activities!