* . *
  • About
  • Advertise
  • Privacy & Policy
  • Contact
Sunday, May 11, 2025
Earth-News
  • Home
  • Business
  • Entertainment
    Free Flowin’ Fest brings entertainment to Pascagoula’s Beach Park – WLOX

    Experience the Excitement: Free Flowin’ Fest Lights Up Pascagoula’s Beach Park!

    ‘Experimental entertainment venue’ sets sights on Austin area – MySA

    ‘Experimental entertainment venue’ sets sights on Austin area – MySA

    Taylor Swift’s team calls subpoena in Blake Lively-Justin Baldoni case ‘tabloid clickbait’ – Yahoo

    Taylor Swift’s Team Slams Subpoena in Blake Lively-Justin Baldoni Case as ‘Tabloid Clickbait

    The Weeknd made the apocalypse sexy at his 2025 tour launch in Arizona – Yahoo

    The Weeknd Turns Up the Heat at His 2025 Tour Launch in Arizona!

    Flutter Entertainment eyes U.S. prediction markets amid growing interest – Sports Business Journal

    Flutter Entertainment Sets Its Sights on U.S. Prediction Markets as Interest Soars

    SXSW Rom-Com ‘I Really Love My Husband’ Acquired for U.S. Release – Variety

    Heartfelt Romance: ‘I Really Love My Husband’ Set to Captivate U.S. Audiences!

  • General
  • Health
  • News

    Cracking the Code: Why China’s Economic Challenges Aren’t Shaking Markets, Unlike America’s” – Bloomberg

    Trump’s Narrow Window to Spread the Truth About Harris

    Trump’s Narrow Window to Spread the Truth About Harris

    Israel-Gaza war live updates: Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh assassinated in Iran, group says

    Israel-Gaza war live updates: Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh assassinated in Iran, group says

    PAP Boss to Niger Delta Youths, Stay Away from the Protest

    PAP Boss to Niger Delta Youths, Stay Away from the Protest

    Court Restricts Protests In Lagos To Freedom, Peace Park

    Court Restricts Protests In Lagos To Freedom, Peace Park

    Fans React to Jazz Jennings’ Inspiring Weight Loss Journey

    Fans React to Jazz Jennings’ Inspiring Weight Loss Journey

    Trending Tags

    • Trump Inauguration
    • United Stated
    • White House
    • Market Stories
    • Election Results
  • Science
  • Sports
  • Technology
    Officials announce massive project that could reshape electric vehicle technology: ‘This is exactly the type of investment that will help us grow the economy’ – Yahoo Finance

    Game-Changer Ahead: Major Investment Set to Transform Electric Vehicle Technology and Boost the Economy!

    Federal agents raid Dymeng Technology Solutions in St. Augustine – Action News Jax

    Federal Agents Storm Dymeng Technology Solutions in St. Augustine: What You Need to Know

    SoundHound’s Amelia 7.0 Platform Delivers Agentic AI With Category Leading Voice Technology – Business Wire

    Unleashing the Future: SoundHound’s Amelia 7.0 Revolutionizes Voice Technology with Agentic AI

    Comings and goings: MPT hires VP of technology, NPR announces changes to Business Desk – Current – For people in public media

    Exciting Leadership Changes: MPT Welcomes New VP of Technology and NPR Revamps Business Desk!

    Harnessing emerging technologies to power a small business – The Oaklandside

    Unlocking Success: How Emerging Technologies Can Transform Your Small Business

    Artificial intelligence (AI) – The Guardian

    Unlocking the Future: How Artificial Intelligence is Transforming Our World

    Trending Tags

    • Nintendo Switch
    • CES 2017
    • Playstation 4 Pro
    • Mark Zuckerberg
No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • Business
  • Entertainment
    Free Flowin’ Fest brings entertainment to Pascagoula’s Beach Park – WLOX

    Experience the Excitement: Free Flowin’ Fest Lights Up Pascagoula’s Beach Park!

    ‘Experimental entertainment venue’ sets sights on Austin area – MySA

    ‘Experimental entertainment venue’ sets sights on Austin area – MySA

    Taylor Swift’s team calls subpoena in Blake Lively-Justin Baldoni case ‘tabloid clickbait’ – Yahoo

    Taylor Swift’s Team Slams Subpoena in Blake Lively-Justin Baldoni Case as ‘Tabloid Clickbait

    The Weeknd made the apocalypse sexy at his 2025 tour launch in Arizona – Yahoo

    The Weeknd Turns Up the Heat at His 2025 Tour Launch in Arizona!

    Flutter Entertainment eyes U.S. prediction markets amid growing interest – Sports Business Journal

    Flutter Entertainment Sets Its Sights on U.S. Prediction Markets as Interest Soars

    SXSW Rom-Com ‘I Really Love My Husband’ Acquired for U.S. Release – Variety

    Heartfelt Romance: ‘I Really Love My Husband’ Set to Captivate U.S. Audiences!

  • General
  • Health
  • News

    Cracking the Code: Why China’s Economic Challenges Aren’t Shaking Markets, Unlike America’s” – Bloomberg

    Trump’s Narrow Window to Spread the Truth About Harris

    Trump’s Narrow Window to Spread the Truth About Harris

    Israel-Gaza war live updates: Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh assassinated in Iran, group says

    Israel-Gaza war live updates: Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh assassinated in Iran, group says

    PAP Boss to Niger Delta Youths, Stay Away from the Protest

    PAP Boss to Niger Delta Youths, Stay Away from the Protest

    Court Restricts Protests In Lagos To Freedom, Peace Park

    Court Restricts Protests In Lagos To Freedom, Peace Park

    Fans React to Jazz Jennings’ Inspiring Weight Loss Journey

    Fans React to Jazz Jennings’ Inspiring Weight Loss Journey

    Trending Tags

    • Trump Inauguration
    • United Stated
    • White House
    • Market Stories
    • Election Results
  • Science
  • Sports
  • Technology
    Officials announce massive project that could reshape electric vehicle technology: ‘This is exactly the type of investment that will help us grow the economy’ – Yahoo Finance

    Game-Changer Ahead: Major Investment Set to Transform Electric Vehicle Technology and Boost the Economy!

    Federal agents raid Dymeng Technology Solutions in St. Augustine – Action News Jax

    Federal Agents Storm Dymeng Technology Solutions in St. Augustine: What You Need to Know

    SoundHound’s Amelia 7.0 Platform Delivers Agentic AI With Category Leading Voice Technology – Business Wire

    Unleashing the Future: SoundHound’s Amelia 7.0 Revolutionizes Voice Technology with Agentic AI

    Comings and goings: MPT hires VP of technology, NPR announces changes to Business Desk – Current – For people in public media

    Exciting Leadership Changes: MPT Welcomes New VP of Technology and NPR Revamps Business Desk!

    Harnessing emerging technologies to power a small business – The Oaklandside

    Unlocking Success: How Emerging Technologies Can Transform Your Small Business

    Artificial intelligence (AI) – The Guardian

    Unlocking the Future: How Artificial Intelligence is Transforming Our World

    Trending Tags

    • Nintendo Switch
    • CES 2017
    • Playstation 4 Pro
    • Mark Zuckerberg
No Result
View All Result
Earth-News
No Result
View All Result
Home Science

Defunct satellites burning up in the atmosphere could damage the ozone layer

June 20, 2024
in Science
Defunct satellites burning up in the atmosphere could damage the ozone layer
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

Defunct satellites burning up in the atmosphere could damage the ozone layer. Here's how

Credit: ESA

Communications companies such as Starlink plan to launch tens of thousands of satellites into orbit around Earth over the next decade or so. The growing swarm is already causing problems for astronomers, but recent research has raised another question: What happens when they start to come down?

When these satellites reach the end of their useful life, they will fall into Earth’s atmosphere and burn up. Along the way, they will leave a trail of tiny metallic particles.

According to a study published last week by a team of American researchers, this satellite rain may dump 360 tons of tiny aluminum oxide particles into the atmosphere each year. The aluminum will mostly be injected at altitudes between 50 and 85 kilometers, but it will then drift down to the stratosphere—home to Earth’s protective ozone layer.

What does that mean? According to the study, the satellite’s contrail could facilitate ozone-destroying chemical reactions. That’s not wrong, but as we will see, the story is far from simple.

How does ozone get destroyed?

Ozone loss in the stratosphere is caused by “free radicals”—atoms or molecules with a free electron. When radicals are produced, they start cycles that destroy many ozone molecules. (These cycles have names Dr. Seuss would admire: NOx, HOx, ClOx and BrOx, as all involve oxygen as well as nitrogen, hydrogen, chlorine and bromine, respectively.)

These radicals are created when stable gases are broken up by ultraviolet light, which there is plenty of in the stratosphere.

Nitrogen oxides (NOx) start with nitrous oxide. This is a greenhouse gas naturally produced by microbes, but human fertilizer manufacturing and agriculture has increased the amount in the air.

The HOx cycle involves hydrogen radicals from water vapor. Not much water vapor makes it into the stratosphere, though events like the Hunga Tonga–Hunga Ha’apai underwater volcanic eruption in 2022 can sometimes inject large amounts. Water in the stratosphere creates numerous small aerosol particles, which create a large surface area for chemical reactions and also scatter more light to make beautiful sunsets. (I will come back to both of these points later.)

Defunct satellites burning up in the atmosphere could damage the ozone layer. Here's how

The plume left by the re-entry of the Soyuz capsule in 2015, as photographed from the International Space Station. Credit: NASA / Scott Kelly

How CFCs made the ‘ozone hole’

ClOx and BrOx are the cycles responsible for the most famous damage to the ozone layer: the “ozone hole” caused by chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and halons. These chemicals, now banned, were commonly used in refrigerators and fire extinguishers and introduced chlorine and bromine to the stratosphere.

CFCs rapidly release chlorine radicals in the stratosphere. However, this reactive chlorine is quickly neutralized and locked up in molecules with nitrogen and water radicals.

What happens next depends on aerosols in the stratosphere, and near the poles it also depends on clouds.

Aerosols speed up chemical reactions by providing a surface for them to occur on. As a result, aerosols in the stratosphere release reactive chlorine (and bromine). Polar stratospheric clouds also remove water and nitrogen oxides from the air.

So, in general, when there are more stratospheric aerosols around we are likely to see more ozone loss.

An increasingly metallic stratosphere

The details of the specific injection of aluminum oxides by falling satellites would be quite complex. This is not the first study to highlight the growing stratospheric pollution from re-entering space junk.

In 2023, researchers studying aerosol particles in the stratosphere detected traces of metals from spacecraft re-entry. They found that 10% of stratospheric aerosols already contain aluminum, and predicted this will increase to 50% over the next 10–30 years. (Around 50% of stratospheric aerosol particles already contain metals from meteorites.)

We don’t know what effect this will have. One likely outcome would be that the aluminum particles seed the growth of ice containing particles. This means that there would be more of the smaller, cold, reflective particles with more surface area on which chemistry can occur.

We also don’t know how aluminum particles will interact with the sulfuric acid, nitric acid and water found in the stratosphere. As a result, we can’t really say what the implications will be for ozone loss.

Defunct satellites burning up in the atmosphere could damage the ozone layer. Here's how

The Hunga Tonga–Hunga Ha’apai eruption in 2022 injected huge amounts of water vapour into the stratosphere. Credit: NASA

Learning from volcanoes

To really understand what these aluminum oxides mean for ozone loss, we need laboratory studies, to model the chemistry in more detail, and also look at how the particles would move around in the atmosphere.

For example, after the Hunga Tonga–Hunga Ha’apai eruption, the water vapor in the stratosphere quickly mixed around the southern hemisphere, and then moved toward the pole. At first, this extra water caused intense sunsets, but a year later, these water aerosols are well diluted across the whole southern hemisphere and we no longer see them.

A global current called the Brewer-Dobson circulation moves air up into the stratosphere near the equator and back down again at the poles. As a result, aerosols and gases can only stay in the stratosphere for at most six years. (Climate change is speeding up this circulation, which means the time that aerosols and gases are in the stratosphere is shorter.)

The famous eruption of Mt Pinatubo in 1991 also created beautiful sunsets. It injected more than 15 million tons of sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere, which cooled the Earth’s surface by a little over half a degree Celsius for around three years. This event is the inspiration for geoengineering proposals to slow down climate change by deliberately putting sulfate aerosols into the stratosphere.

Many questions remain

Compared to Pinatubo’s 15 million tons, 360 tons of aluminum oxide seems like small potatoes.

However, we don’t know how aluminum oxides will behave physically under stratospheric conditions. Will it make aerosols that are smaller and more reflective—thus cooling the surface, much like stratospheric aerosol injection geoengineering scenarios?

We also don’t know how aluminum will behave chemically. Will it create ice nuclei? How will it interact with nitric and sulfuric acid? Will it release locked-up chlorine more effectively than current stratospheric aerosols, facilitating ozone destruction?

And of course, the aluminum aerosols won’t stay in the stratosphere forever. When they eventually fall to the ground, what will this metal contamination do in our polar regions?

All these questions need to be addressed. By some estimates, more than 50,000 satellites may be launched between now and 2030, so we must address them quickly.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.The Conversation

Citation:
Defunct satellites burning up in the atmosphere could damage the ozone layer (2024, June 20)
retrieved 20 June 2024
from https://phys.org/news/2024-06-defunct-satellites-atmosphere-ozone-layer.html

This document is subject to copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study or research, no
part may be reproduced without the written permission. The content is provided for information purposes only.

>>> Read full article>>>
Copyright for syndicated content belongs to the linked Source : Phys.org – https://phys.org/news/2024-06-defunct-satellites-atmosphere-ozone-layer.html

Tags: DefunctSatellitesscience
Previous Post

What actually makes avocados bad for the environment?

Next Post

Wait … the Underground Railroad ran across the Rio Grande? A lost story surfaces.

Two decades of bacterial ecology and evolution in a freshwater lake – Nature

Two decades of bacterial ecology and evolution in a freshwater lake – Nature

May 11, 2025
NIH guts its first and largest study centered on women – Science | AAAS

Groundbreaking Women’s Health Study Faces Major Cuts: What It Means for the Future

May 11, 2025
Eggs are less likely to crack when dropped on their side, according to science – NBC News

Science Reveals: Dropping Eggs on Their Side Reduces Cracking Risk!

May 11, 2025
A letter to Mom: I am more like you than you think – Lifestyle.INQ

A letter to Mom: I am more like you than you think – Lifestyle.INQ

May 11, 2025
Zara: Inside the secretive world of the fashion brand – BBC

Unveiling Zara: A Deep Dive into the Enigmatic Fashion Empire

May 11, 2025
Trump’s team is finally meeting with China. The future of the global economy is riding on its success – CNN

Trump’s Team Engages with China: A Pivotal Moment for the Global Economy

May 11, 2025
Free Flowin’ Fest brings entertainment to Pascagoula’s Beach Park – WLOX

Experience the Excitement: Free Flowin’ Fest Lights Up Pascagoula’s Beach Park!

May 11, 2025
Local health system eliminates pay differential for nurses during National Nurses Week – NBC 5 Chicago

Local Health System Celebrates National Nurses Week by Equalizing Pay for Nurses!

May 11, 2025
Lehigh County pension fund halts buying Tesla stock because of performance, politics – LehighValleyNews.com

Lehigh County Pension Fund Stops Investing in Tesla: A Shift Driven by Performance and Politics

May 11, 2025
Officials announce massive project that could reshape electric vehicle technology: ‘This is exactly the type of investment that will help us grow the economy’ – Yahoo Finance

Game-Changer Ahead: Major Investment Set to Transform Electric Vehicle Technology and Boost the Economy!

May 11, 2025

Categories

Archives

May 2025
MTWTFSS
 1234
567891011
12131415161718
19202122232425
262728293031 
« Apr    
Earth-News.info

The Earth News is an independent English-language daily published Website from all around the World News

Browse by Category

  • Business (20,132)
  • Ecology (600)
  • Economy (612)
  • Entertainment (21,525)
  • General (15,211)
  • Health (9,654)
  • Lifestyle (617)
  • News (22,149)
  • People (615)
  • Politics (619)
  • Science (15,834)
  • Sports (21,122)
  • Technology (15,602)
  • World (602)

Recent News

Two decades of bacterial ecology and evolution in a freshwater lake – Nature

Two decades of bacterial ecology and evolution in a freshwater lake – Nature

May 11, 2025
NIH guts its first and largest study centered on women – Science | AAAS

Groundbreaking Women’s Health Study Faces Major Cuts: What It Means for the Future

May 11, 2025
  • About
  • Advertise
  • Privacy & Policy
  • Contact

© 2023 earth-news.info

No Result
View All Result

© 2023 earth-news.info

No Result
View All Result

© 2023 earth-news.info

Go to mobile version