The trend is clear. The upper stage of a Chinese rocket CZ-9 He disintegrated last night about western Mexicocausing a small stir. Nothing happened, as nothing happened a few weeks ago, when A Falcon 9 rocket burned on Polanddespite the fact that several large pieces survive the reentry and fall into populated areas.
There were no regret injured when A half ton ring appeared in a town in Kenyawhen part of a Crew Dragon ship fell on a Saskatchewan farm or when the trunk of another dragon re -entered into A North Carolina Glamping. But the trend is clear.
We are tempting luck. According to a Recent European Space Agency reportan average of three objects of considerable size, such as old satellites or rocket stages, re -enter the atmosphere every day. Most of these objects disintegrate during atmospheric braking; And a large number of the pieces that do not fall controlled in the Pacific.
However, experts’ warning is clear: this has only begun. “We play the whole for the whole every time we have a reentry,” said astrophysic Jonathan McDowell to Space.com. “Sooner or later we will have bad luck, and someone will be injured by the fall of space garbage.”
From 3 to 15 resentments per day. Only in 2024, about 1,200 “intact objects” returned to the atmosphere, without counting on the myriad of smaller fragments. Despite this constant natural cleaning of satellites and rockets, courtesy of atmospheric braking, The amount of space garbage in orbit does not stop growing. That esteem is about 45,700 objects of more than 10 centimeters orbiting our planet, a considerable increase.
In addition to the frequent space releases, satellite constellations, with Starlink at the head, have completely transformed the space sector scale. “If Spacex continues with its plans to expand its constellation to 30,000 satellites, then we will see 15 daily reentrys,” McDowell explained. Starlink satellites, deployed in low orbit, have a useful life of five years. They will soon be added to the Kuiper constellation of Amazon and the Chinese commercial constellations.
At the moment of truth. The vast majority of the earth’s surface is ocean or uninhabited land, so the probability that a fragment impacts a person remains very low. But incidents occur and are less and less anecdotal.
In March 2024, a 10 centimeter metal fragment crossed the roof of a house in Florida, later identified as part of a battery pallet discarded from the International Space Station three years before.
And what about the atmosphere? Beyond the risk of impact, another issue worries atmospheric scientists: the pollutants left each reentry. “The impact on the atmosphere is greater than ever, since more ozone destroying contaminants are ever being added,” said Eloise Marais, atmospheric chemistry of the University College in London.
Most satellites are made of aluminum, which By vaporizing in the high layers of the atmosphere it produces aluminum oxide. It is known that this substance can accelerate the destruction of the ozone layer and contribute to thermal changes. Until now they were not significant amounts, but as the resentments increase, we enter unexplored terrain.
Images | Airlive, Juancho Rodríguez
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