Headline, August 04 2024/ ''' THE SATELLITES TAP '''

''' THE SATELLITES TAP '''

SATELLITE COULD REOPEN OZONE HOLE. Fleets falling back to Earth leave potentially harmful particles of metal behind.

Low-Earth orbit - a layer of superhighway that wraps sound the Earth's thermosphere some 200 to 600 miles above our heads is newly congested.

Yet no one knows how the vast increase in the number of satellites orbiting Earth between 320 and 970 kilometers up will affect the atmosphere, and therefore life below.

With a rush to send more and more satellites, a new study proposes that the hole in the ozone layer, a problem scientists thought they had solved decades ago, could make a comeback.

'' Up until a few years ago, this was not a research area at all, '' Martin Ross, an atmosphere scientist of  Aerospace Corporation, said of the study, which looked at the ways an increase in man-made metal particles could eat away at Earth's protective layer.

Ever since Sputnik, the first man-made space satellite was launched in 1957, scientists have thought that when satellites re-enter our atmosphere at the end of their lives, their vaporization has little effect.

But new satellites - much more advanced, but also smaller, cheaper and more disposable than previous satellites - have a turnover rate that resembles that of the fast fashion, said the lead author of the study,  José Pedro Ferreira, a doctoral candidate in astronautical engineering at the University of Southern California.

Almost 20 percent of all satellites ever launched have re-entered Earth's atmosphere in the last half-decade, burning up in superfast, superhot blazes.

Mr. Ferreira calculated that upon satellite re-entry, the bulk of a burned-up satellite could become  aluminium oxide, a pollutant that could interfere with stratospheric ozone chemistry. Each satellite can generate just under 70 pounds [ 30 kilograms ] of aluminium oxide nanoparticles.

The study, which relied on laboratory measurements and computer model, posits that if the number of satellites launched results in mega-constellations of hundreds or thousands, they could create an excess of aluminium 640 percent above natural levels, which could lead to significant ozone depletion.

'' We're still in the very beginning of a big research effort, so it's too early to be sure that there is a negative impact, but we're clearly starting to see the pieces of evidence,'' said Mr. Ferreira, whose research, published in Geophysical Research Letters, was funded by NASA and the National Science Foundation.

Mr. Ferreira said studies like this were not antisatellite but added to a growing body of research on the sustainable development of space.

Daniel Cziczo, a professor of  earth, atmospheric and planetary sciences at Purdue University, flies high-altitude aircraft to look at the particles left in the atmosphere from meteoroids.

Last year, he published a study that showed these particles coagulating with man-made metals from satellites.

He said Mr. Ferrita's study jumped to conclusions not supported by his own research because it ascribed incorrect size, composition and chemistry to the particles in the atmosphere.

Increasing the number of launches and decommissioning more satellites that that largely burn up mean there's going to be more material in the atmosphere, Dr. Cziczo said.

'' It brings up the question of what impact will that have, and we don't know that yet.'' But he said that while ozone depletion and the climate effects of satellites needed to be studied, he did not think this paper was approaching those issues correctly.

Mr. Ferrira said '' models are only as good as the data you have to validate it with, so we should be cautious and careful about the level of certainty we have concerning environmental impacts.'' 

The Honour and Serving of the Latest Global Operational Research on Satellites, space-debris and risks continues. The World Students Society thanks Austryn Gaffney.

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