A physicist says it’s ‘quite possible’ a SpaceX launch punched a hole in parts of the Earth’s atmosphere

A physicist says a SpaceX rocket may have punched a temporary hole in the ionosphere.
The ionosphere is where Earth’s atmosphere meets space.
Jeff Baumgardner, a physicist from Boston University, made the comment to Spaceweather.com.

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A space physicist has said it’s “quite possible” that a SpaceX rocket launched earlier this month made a hole in the Earth’s ionosphere.

The ionosphere is where Earth’s atmosphere meets space and stretches roughly 50 to 400 miles above Earth’s surface, Nasa said. 

Jeff Baumgardner, a senior research scientist from Boston University, made the comments to Spaceweather. Ionospheric holes have become more common as record numbers of rockets are launched, the report said. The holes are temporary as reionization occurs when the sun rises.

A picture of the incident was captured by photographer Jeremy Perez on July 19 after SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 rocket from a base in California. SpaceX’s Falcon 9 is a reusable, two-stage rocket designed to reliably transport people and cargo into orbit.

The photograph, which was featured in the article, showed a red fluorescent glow that Perez said “expanded southward and crossed over the Milky Way.” He said the glow was visible for around 20 minutes after the launch.

Baumgardner said the phenomenon was “well-studied” and can occur when “rockets are burning their engines 200 to 300 km above Earth’s surface.”

“The red glow appears when exhaust gasses from the rocket’s 2nd stage cause the ionosphere to recombine quickly,” he said, referring to a photograph.

Representatives for SpaceX did not immediately respond to Insider’s request for comment, made outside normal working hours.

SpaceX has experienced the phenomenon before, in 2017, an Arts Technica report said. In 2018, the outlet reported that another Falcon 9 launch caused a 560-mile-wide hole in the Earth’s ionosphere that lasted for two to three hours.

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