‘My god, it’s full of aerosolized metals!’
A group of scientists studying the effects of rocket and satellite reentry vaporization in Earth’s atmosphere have found some startling evidence that could point to disastrous environmental effects on the horizon.
The study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, found that around 10 percent of large (>120 nm) sulfuric acid particles in the stratosphere contain aluminum and other elements consistent with the makeup of alloys used in spacecraft construction, including lithium, copper and lead. The other 90 percent comes from “meteoric smoke,” which are the particles left over when meteors vaporize during atmospheric entry, and that naturally-occurring share is expected to plummet drastically.
“The space industry has entered an era of rapid growth,” the boffins said in their paper, “with tens of thousands of small satellites planned for low earth orbit.
“It is likely that in the next few decades, the percentage of stratospheric sulfuric acid particles that contain aluminum and other metals from satellite reentry will be comparable to the roughly 50 percent that now contain meteoric metals,” the team concluded.
Atmospheric circulation at those altitudes (beginning somewhere between four and 12 miles above ground level and extending up to 31 miles above Earth) means such particles are unlikely to have an effect on the surface environment or human health, the researchers opined.
