19 ms·

One to two Starlink satellites are falling back to Earth each day

• JumpCrisscross 1y ago
  > Soon, McDowell told us, there will be up to 5 satellite reentries per day Starlink’s next-generation V3s, which will require Starship to launch, weigh in around 2 metric tonnes [1]. (They’re currently “around 260 and 310 kilograms” [2].) “Every day, Earth is bombarded with more than 100 tons [91 metric tons] of dust and sand-sized particles” [3]. So we’re talking about a 2 to 10% increase in burn-up by mass. (Not accounting for energy, which natural burn-up has more of, or incomplete burn-up, which reduces the atmospheric effects of artificial mass.) Broadly speaking, we don’t seem to be in a problematic place in respect of the atmosphere. Where improvement may be required is in moving from splashdown, where we sink space junk in the ocean, to targeted recovery. [1] https://starlink-stories.cdn.prismic.io/starlink-stories/Z3QOWJbqstJ986KD_StarlinkProgress-V11_Low-Res-compressed.pdf https://starlink-stories.cdn.prismic.io/starlink-stories/Z3Q... [2] https://www.teslarati.com/spacex-elon-musk-next-gen-starlink-satellite-details/ https://www.teslarati.com/spacex-elon-musk-next-gen-starlink... [3] https://www.nasa.gov/solar-system/asteroids/asteroid-fast-facts/ https://www.nasa.gov/solar-system/asteroids/asteroid-fast-fa...
  • Y-bar 1y ago
    Asking from a place of ignorance on my part, but does the chemical composition of the satellites versus asteroids/dust have any adverse effects?
    • SoftTalker 1y ago
      The satellites are mostly metal and silicon I would guess, not too different from asteroids.
      • bwestergard 1y ago
        If someone has the time, I'd love to see the total amount of lead added to the atmosphere by burning up satellites compared to the amount from other anthropogenic sources.
        • adastra22 1y ago
          Rough napkin math would be negligible impact. The amount of lead in a satellite is very small, if not actually zero. The amount of lead added by burning coal is about 30 tonnes per day.
          • everforward 1y ago
            There is almost definitely a small, negligible amount of lead in the solder in them. Eg NASA requires a small (single digit I think) percentage of lead to prevent tin whiskering.
            • JumpCrisscross 1y ago
              > almost definitely a small, negligible amount of lead in the solder in them Emphasis on negligible. Assuming 0.07 to 0.28 ppm lead [1] in meteoroids, space is dosing us with half to 2 kg a year [2]. [1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/001670376090079X https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/001670... [2] https://earthsky.org/space/tons-of-extraterrestrial-dust-fall-to-earth-each-year/#:~:text=Bottom%20line%3A,each%20year. https://earthsky.org/space/tons-of-extraterrestrial-dust-fal...
        • deleted 1y ago
          [deleted]
      • cubefox 1y ago
        I guess we can just read the article: > The researchers found particles containing the rare elements niobium and hafnium. They also found a significant number of particles contained copper, lithium and aluminum at concentrations far exceeding the abundance found in space dust.
    • perihelions 1y ago
      It's postulated that the high aluminum content of satellites (for perspective, Bennu samples are only 1% Al), as oxidized Al2O3 particles in the stratosphere, catalyze chemistry that destroys ozone. But that's far from a quantitatively meaningful problem, at the current scale. This source[0] says satellite reentries are about about 12% of the space industry's contribution to ozone depletion (the big one is chlorine from solid rockets), which in turn is 0.1% of the entire anthropogenic contribution; i.e. satellite reentries are ~0.01% of the total. https://www.space.com/spacex-starlink-reentry-pollution-damage-earth-atmosphere https://www.space.com/spacex-starlink-reentry-pollution-dama...
      • schiffern 1y ago
        >0.01% of anthropogenic ozone depletion The sheer percentage increase in stratospheric AlO is still alarming.[0] Satellite reentries in 2022 (ie mostly pre-megaconstellation) were already raising stratospheric AlO levels by 29.5% above normal levels (with satellites adding 'only' 17 t/year), but megaconstellations could raise that to ~480% above natural levels (360 t/year). This isn't a rounding error, it's a non-trivial change in chemical composition across the entire globe, and effecting a complex and poorly-understood part of the climate system. What could go wrong? What else can this effect (as usual, discovered belatedly) beyond ozone? Hopefully it's nothing! But I guess we're gonna find out... [0] https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2024GL109280 https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2024GL10...
        • JumpCrisscross 1y ago
          > Satellite reentries in 2022 (mostly pre-megaconstellation) were already raising stratospheric AlO levels by 29.5% above normal levels Those findings are simulated, not observed. Hence "potential." > it's a non-trivial change in chemical composition over the entire globe, and effecting a complex and poorly-understood part of the climate system. What could go wrong? Perhaps a lot. Perhaps not much. It's a good question to study. But if this is an issue, it's solvable--carbon composite satellite structures could use a boost in demand and funding.
          • 1y ago
    • svmt 1y ago
      Bloomberg ran a piece about this in March: https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2025-space-orbit-satellites-pollution/?accessToken=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJzb3VyY2UiOiJTdWJzY3JpYmVyR2lmdGVkQXJ0aWNsZSIsImlhdCI6MTc1OTc3NDMzMCwiZXhwIjoxNzYwMzc5MTMwLCJhcnRpY2xlSWQiOiJTVkxQME5UMVVNMFcwMCIsImJjb25uZWN0SWQiOiI2QzJFRUEzQjg0NDc0NjIyOThDMTA4NjFDNUExNUUwNyJ9.vCAdj_kZrKPo-a-QyGCkXFXlX-ktK3Tymu3c3qg0nNw https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2025-space-orbit-satellit...
    • deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
  • nicce 1y ago
    There is a limit how much satellites LEO/GEO can hold unless every satellite has perfect dodging system. Called as Kessler syndrome [1], and one estimate is around 70k satellites. So it is a race who can get the most satellites orbiting, because after a certain point, there is no "space" anymore, and anyone who tries to launch after that point, will be blamed for destroying the satellites of the others. Winner takes all. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome
    • dgs_sgd 1y ago
      I’m just a layman, but why can’t they increase the orbital radius to solve this problem? Like, if the current “layer” is too full, have the new satellites orbit further out?
      • nemomarx 1y ago
        Low orbit is how star link is able to achieve their connections, isn't it? I think of they moved to normal telecom orbit the performance would be like normal satellite internet too
        • peterfirefly 1y ago
          They originally planned to be about 1100km up. They are currently about 550km up. Plenty of possible layers in between... Another 500 km won't affect latency much. It'll be around 3 more ms per round trip.
          • nemomarx 1y ago
            That's not a bad latency addition, you're right. Good note
      • parl_match 1y ago
        very simple explanation but there's a few issues radio bandwidth: higher frequencies travel a shorter distance and provide more bandwidth. so you get frequency contention and also you need your sats to be physically closer latency: the further a sat is, the higher the latency. not an issue for text messages. a huge issue for phone calls and general internet tasks. the further you "push" your sat "back", the worst the user experience is there's other issues too, like geostationary vs geosynchronous and coverage and exposure.
  • wat10000 1y ago
    A 2-10% increase seems like a hell of a lot. Human CO2 emissions are well under 10% of natural CO2 emissions, and yet that additional amount has been enough to increase the atmospheric concentration of CO2 by over 50% and substantially alter the planetary climate. CO2 in the atmosphere is at a vastly larger scale than mass falling in from space, so that doesn't mean this is a problem, but that percentage certainly seems to indicate that the question should be studied further.
  • ogig 1y ago
    I hear 10% increase on a global constant and that doesn't sound like peanuts. If we increase 10% each few years that might be a problem? I don't know anything about whatever field studies this but given that LEO constellations born yesterday even that 2% increase in stuff coming from the skyes sounds significant to me.
    • JumpCrisscross 1y ago
      Short answer is we're still theorizing. Models suggest we might see accumulation. But we might not, or it might not accumulate at relevant altitudes. (Current LEO satellites burn up before hitting the ozone layer.)
    • shizcakes 1y ago
      edit: okay I misunderstood what everyone meant
      • organsnyder 1y ago
        I don't see anyone worrying about planetary mass. I'd be more concerned about atmospheric effects.
      • palata 1y ago
        Is that what you say when you litter? "I don't see a problem with plastic in the ocean, it came from the Earth in the first place".
      • lxgr 1y ago
        > please recall that the mass of de-orbiting man-made satellites came from the earth in the first place. Then again, so are CFCs, CO2, radioactive materials... Just because some elements naturally occur on Earth doesn't mean we're completely insensitive to where they end up. (That said, I have no idea if atmospheric Aluminium is actually a problem or not.)
        • VBprogrammer 1y ago
          I was watching a video the other day which happened to mention that sodium lasers are used to create artificial stars, used for calibration of adaptive optics in ground based telescopes. This works because one particular layer of the upper atmosphere is rich in sodium due to impact with sodium rich debris. Obviously it requires a more scientific analysis but it does seem to me that burning a lot of shit on the atmosphere might be problematic.
  • cowpig 1y ago
    Why is a 2-10% increase a small amount? What increase would be too much?
  • benjiro 1y ago
    > (They’re currently “around 260 and 310 kilograms” [2].) v1.5 is like 300kg, the v2.0 mini (ironic as its far from mini compared to its predecessors) are 800kg. The V3's are the one's that need StarShip to deploy. But the current launch platform can take 21x v2.0 Mini's per launch vs the 60x v1.5's they did before. Taking in account that the v2.0 Mini's are way more capably on a kg/capacity. And the tech keeps getting better. SpaceX does not really need Starship, that is more or less a bonus at this point.
    • perihelions 1y ago
      > "SpaceX does not really need Starship, that is more or less a bonus at this point." Starship is the moat SpaceX needs to be developing today to stay ahead of where the Chinese competition will be in 5-10 years.
      • skatingaway 1y ago
        Moats are for direct competition. China is not a competitor to spacex because the US government is spacex’s largest subsidy/customer. Put another way: nasa won’t be using Chinese rockets. Unless they bribe trump. Which could happen.
        • marcus_holmes 1y ago
          NASA ended up using Russian rockets because the Space Shuttle program got politically awkward. There is definitely a world where they'd use Chinese rockets.
        • JumpCrisscross 1y ago
          > China is not a competitor to spacex because the US government is spacex’s largest subsidy/customer SpaceX has loads of international launch and connectivity customers. China undercutting SpaceX would significantly compromise its prospects.
  • matthewdgreen 1y ago
    See the first comment in this thread about aluminum oxide and the ozone layer. It’s not so much the amount, but what it is.
• trenbologna 1y ago
  Does this create pollution? I don't think I want to inhale satellite dust.
  • mrguyorama 1y ago
    Unfortunately right now we just don't know how it will affect things. But, it WILL affect things in climate and atmosphere. https://csl.noaa.gov/news/2025/427_0428.html https://csl.noaa.gov/news/2025/427_0428.html "Pollution" is what this is
    • throwzasdf 1y ago
      [dead]
  • metalman 1y ago
    The real world concentrations of all of the elements that are in a satelite, dont go up by any measurable amount dues to space X sattelites burning up. What does have a huge impact is climate change causing industrial waste sites to dry up and spread dust, or just the inevitable increaes due to more human activity and mining for our resouce heavy consumption, especialy anything with chips, and batteries, exotic alloys in screens
  • ggreer 1y ago
    Current Starlink satellites are 800-970kg[1] and 100% of their mass is vaporized on reentry, so 1-2 satellites a day would be approximately 1.5 tons per day added to the atmosphere. The atmosphere's mass is 5.15 quadrillion tons. Even if satellite vapor stayed in the atmosphere forever, it would take approximately 10,000 years before it reached 1 part per billion. So basically it's not worth worrying about. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starlink#v2_(initial_deployment) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starlink#v2_(initial_deploymen...
    • Veedrac 1y ago
      This is correct from the perspective of direct health hazards, but there are still plausible risks. We know from history you don't need a lot of mass to cause global problems, if the material is catalytic.
• ActorNightly 1y ago
  At this point, Im just waiting to find out that Falcon launches aren't actually that much cheaper in reality, and are just heavily subsidized.
  • adastra22 1y ago
    You'll be waiting a long time, because that is simply not true.
    • inemesitaffia 1y ago
      And is literally Russian propaganda older than the 2022 Ukraine invasion.
• chermi 1y ago
  [flagged]
  • londons_explore 1y ago
    0.018% of the worlds population have starlink subscriptions. Yet 100% put up with the atmospheric pollution of a lot of mass being plasmified on the way back to earth, the light pollution, the lack of other services delivered with that spectrum, etc. One might ask how the 99.982% of us will be compensated.
    • loeg 1y ago
      Personally, I've never suffered from satellite plasma or light pollution from satellites, or spectrum allocation. I suspect most of the 100% are like me.
      • hobs 1y ago
        [flagged]
      • ggoo 1y ago
        Scientific advancement has suffered from the light pollution and that advancement is a driving force behind your modern life. So you have (or will) suffer indirectly over time.
        • loeg 1y ago
          I think your attempted connection between astronomy and modern technological conveniences is pretty thin.
          • ggoo 1y ago
            Does your phone have a camera on it?
        • JumpCrisscross 1y ago
• HNrenewables 1y ago
  [dead]
• superkuh 1y ago
  Short lifetime and quick re-entry is a great feature of vLEO constellations. No long term space junk. Compare that to MEO or GEO where sats are there pretty much forever (hundreds to thousands of years). Or even high LEO with many tens of years.
  • whazor 1y ago
    Yes, it is much better to error on the side of losing satellites, versus making future space travel impossible.
    • JumpCrisscross 1y ago
      > versus making future space travel impossible Not a real thing. (It was proposed as a possibility. We searched the parameter space. Mostly in the context of militaries trying to figure out how to deny orbits to an adversary. It's really difficult, to the point that even if one were intentionally trying to cause Kessler cascades, they wouldn't deny an adversary access to orbit.)
      • MikeNotThePope 1y ago
        Although it could become risky enough that the cost mitigation becomes untenable. For example, I wouldn't want to live in a neighborhood so dangerous that I have to pay to cover my house in thick armor plating just to avoid being collateral damage of the violence shenanigans outside my front door.
        • JumpCrisscross 1y ago
          > it could become risky enough that the cost mitigation becomes untenable What cost mitigation are you referring to? > thick armor plating It makes about as much sense to armor a satellite as it does a plane. (Much less, actually, given the fuel costs are higher, energies in orbit are higher and densities orders of magnitude lower--to approximate the global density of airplanes in LEO, we'd need something like 4mm satellites up there. To approximate the density of controlled airspaces in LEO, we need about 10x that.) > violence shenanigans outside my front door Where the closest object to your front door is 10+ miles away.
• micromacrofoot 1y ago
  It sure would be nice if we found out if this mattered before it does.
• josefritzishere 1y ago
  I am not convinced that Starlink will continue to exist long term. They reported break even in 2023 but I don't think that included the ongoing cost of replacing satillites.
  • adastra22 1y ago
    Their accounting does include that cost.
  • bryanlarsen 1y ago
    They reported cash flow positive. "Cash flow positive" is a much stronger statement than "profitable" because it doesn't let you play games with amortization. So it included the ongoing cost of replacing satellites plus 100% costs of putting up new ones for future use where normal accounting would allow you to amortize those costs. SpaceX is obviously quite profitable. They're obviously spending many billions annually on salaries, Starlink launches and Starship development yet they haven't raised significant money via debt or equity financing rounds in the last few years.
    • mothballed 1y ago
      Starlink is operated by Starlink Services, LLC which allows SpaceX to play all sorts of accounting tricks by mixing in engineered contracts with SpaceX.
      • bryanlarsen 1y ago
        Independent estimates are for $5B of profit on $10B of revenue for Starlink for 2025. You don't get numbers like that by subsidizing it from the ~$1B/year launch business. https://www.advanced-television.com/2025/10/01/forecast-8-2m-starlink-subs-by-december/ https://www.advanced-television.com/2025/10/01/forecast-8-2m...
      • inemesitaffia 1y ago
        The money has to show up somewhere.
• Fischgericht 1y ago
  [Disclaimer: Not a hater, just a Nerd looking at data.] And just as Tesla's stock goes up whenever there are reports about them no longer selling cars, or being years behind on self-driving tech and robotics... if Starlink would be publicly traded, their stock would now shoot way up. On a more serious note: If analysts would do their job, they could have found out years ago that Starlink will never ever be profitable, just as no Sat ISP in history ever has been. All always have and are funded with tax-payer money. Why is that? Simple maths. Including R&D and launch cost and expected usage time, the TCO of one of their satellites will be somewhere in the area of $2,000,000. One of them in theory has a peak speed of 100 GBit/s. If you overbook the link by a factor of 10 as it is common for an ISP, that gives you 1,000 Gbit/s to sell. So in best case over the lifetime of the system you will make a revenue of 1,000 * $100 * 36 months. So you end up somewhere in the area of $3,600,000. Yes, that is more than $2,000,000, but well, there are a couple of billions of investments and investor money here to be paid back one day. "But why are you only assuming a usage time of 3 years?" While Musk's idea of rapid R&D cycles is fine for Software, it's extremely expensive. The "Oops, the Sat-to-Sat links are not working, so we now have to build base stations everywhere and can not do load distribution" might have cost Starlink something like $10 BILLION? I guess I would have tested my stuff first before launching it. With now two generations of Starlink sats already being outdated and/or falling from the sky, the "in two weeks" promises from Musk don't make me very confident that Starlink v3 will actually be properly tested prior to polluting space with their buggy trash again. But let's restart it in a much simpler way: A currently used commercial fiber cable can do 800 GBit/s, so eight times of a Starlink Satellite. Real-life data has already proven that the lifespan (outdated transceivers etc) is somewhere around 5-8 years, with the biggest risk being your cable getting cut. The cable itself costs virtually nothing. Due to this "developing" countries have mostly decided to not lay fiber underground. In Thailand for example, the fiber cables are simply thrown onto houses and through the jungle, as replacing them is dirt cheap. Anyway: If you map this to the TCO on 3 years as mapped above, this means compared to the TCO of $2,000,000 for Starlink, for fiber you are looking at something in the area of $10,000 instead. It's a no-brainer. Real-life proof: I live on a tiny and very very remote Island in Asia. Some people used to have Starlink here. But due to their Satellites now being massively overbooked, speeds went down months to months. So people noticed that it is actually cheaper to run 10 KILOMETERS / 6 Miles of Fiber cable through the jungle. And on this tiny remote Island there are three Fiber ISPs to choose from. Two of them offer 1 GBit/s for $13 per month, and if you want a business service, for $40 you can get 2 GBit/s down / 1 GBit/s up. And unlike Starlink those ISPs are profitable. You have to be EXTREMELY remote for Sat internet to make sense. No, not rural USA. Fiber will be cheaper. No, not Africa. Fiber through the desert will be cheaper. Sat Internet may make sense if you live in the artic or on mount Everest or something like that. Or Mars. In all other cases the TCO of Fiber will win.
• Zufriedenheit 1y ago
  Can this become dangerous for airplanes? Or are they fully burned up before reaching that low altitude?
  • naberhausj 1y ago
    This article [1] indicates that they burn up at altitudes between 37-50 miles above the surface. If so, that's well above the 40,000' that planes normally fly. [1] https://www.space.com/spacex-starlink-reentry-pollution-damage-earth-atmosphere https://www.space.com/spacex-starlink-reentry-pollution-dama...
  • Rebelgecko 1y ago
    There's typically only a small amount of matter that makes it down intact, and they usually aim to deorbit in the middle of nowhere (eg Point Nemo)
• dostick 1y ago
  That means there must be launching to orbit equivalent replacement, not daily of course.
  • darknavi 1y ago
    Indeed, SpaceX often has multiple launches of Starlink sats a week. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Falcon_9_and_Falcon_Heavy_launches#2025 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Falcon_9_and_Falcon_He...
    • ignoramous 1y ago
      A launch every 3 days all throughout 2025. Simply incredible.
• varenc 1y ago
  This article has a somewhat alarmist tone, but isn't this just Starlink working as intended? It seems much better for an old non-functional Starlink satellite to burn up in the atmosphere instead of continuing in an uncontrolled orbit. I believe most burn-ups are controlled intentional deorbits.
  • benjiro 1y ago
    Yep, those are the original / older gen sats, that have way less capacity then the newer models. They are moving away from tons of small sats and more to larger (with longer life time) sats that have multiple times the capacity, of the combined smaller sats. Quoting a older post i made on the subject: ------- Take in account, that a lot of those are replacement sats for the first generations that they are deorbiting already. Do not quote me on this, but its a insane amount (i though it was around 2k) of the first generation that they are deorbiting. If there is a issue, its not the amount of sats in space, but more the insane amount of deorbiting StarLink is doing. Starlink wanted to put up insane numbers, but a lot of their fights contain a large percentage of replacement sats. And they are getting bigger ... v1.5 is like 300kg, the v2.0 mini (ironic as its far from mini compared to its predecessors) are 800kg. So before StarLink launched 60x v1.5's but now they are doing 21x v2.0 Mini's per launch. The technology has been improving a lot, allowing for a lot more capacity per satellite. Not sure when they start launching v3's but those have like 3x the capacity for inner connects/ground stations and can go up to 1Gbit speeds (compared to the v2's who are again much more capable then multiple v1.5s). So what we are seeing is less satellites per launch but more capacity per sat. This year is the last year that they are doing mass 1.5 launches, its all now going to the v2.0 "mini" (so 3x less sats).
    • smallerize 1y ago
      They keep the satellites relatively low for latency, and that means they still need a lot of them for line-of-sight coverage, right? They have plans to add 15,000 more satellites. https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/10/starlinks-ambitious-mobile-plan-could-be-trouble-for-apple-att-and-verizon/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/10/starlinks-ambiti...
• fred_is_fred 1y ago
  > NOAA said the stratosphere contains an unexpected quantity of particles with a variety of exotic metals. The scientists believe the particles come from satellites and spent rocket boosters as they are vaporized by the intense heat of reentry. My start-up is called Strato Mines - collecting rare earths from 120km above earth. Willing to give 1% at a 100B valuation to any qualified investor.
• allenrb 1y ago
  Man, I dream of living in a world in which our biggest (or even a top-10) environmental concern is “debris from LEO burning up in the atmosphere”. Yes, most of us are pretty angry at/disappointed in Elon these days but there are better places to focus than this.
  • aaomidi 1y ago
    Some chemicals can be extremely potent climate problems. Starlink does represent an astronomical increase in these metals etc in the atmosphere.
    • asadotzler 1y ago
      Not really. It's a tiny fraction of the same potent ones that come from meterioids, and unimaginably small compared to what just the relatively few solid rocket booster launches. If you're concerned about aluminum oxide's impact on the ozone, you need to lobby for the end of solid rocket boosters log before you even consider demising satellites.
• deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
• ecommerceguy 1y ago
  "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&year=2025 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.
  • terminalshort 1y ago
    The fact that they quantified everything here except for the amount of ozone this actually destroys tells me that it's completely insignificant.
    • ecommerceguy 1y ago
      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/10.1029/2024JD042442 https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2024JD04...
      • quotemstr 1y ago
        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?
• asadotzler 1y ago
  If this worries you, ban solid rocket boosters before you ban satellites. The real ozone damage from the space industry is not demising satellites, it's solid rocket booster pollution.
• hcfman 1y ago
  Are they hot enough to cause forest fires when they hit the ground? I can't imagine that they would completely vaporize from that low orbit.
• kenmacd 1y ago
  "Oh no: There's metal satellites falling from orbit! Also: wanna buy a metal coin, they were sent to the edge of space!". I find the juxtaposition more amusing then I probably should.