A persecution of dramatic aircraft of a spacecraft that falls has provided new ideas about the burning processes that accompany the atmospheric disappearance of retired satellites. Measurements will help scientists better understand how satellite air pollution affects the atmosphere of the earth.
At the beginning of September last year, a team of European scientists addressed a rented business plane on Easter Island to track the Atmospheric re -entry or sauceOne of the European Space Agency‘S (ESA) Four identical cluster satellites. The plane was equipped with 26 cameras to capture the appearance of letters in different light wavelengths.
The first results of the unique observation campaign were published in early April in the European Conference on Space Rubble In Bonn, Germany.
The satellite burned, an event similar to a meteorite that lasted less than 50 seconds, took place above the Pacific Ocean shortly before noon, local time on September 8, 2024. The bright day light complicated the observations and avoided the use of more powerful instruments, which would have provided more detailed views. Even so, the team managed to obtain new ideas about satellite incineration, something that is little understood and difficult to study.
“The event was quite weak, weaker than we expected,” Stefan Löhle, a researcher at the Space Systems Institute at Stuttgart in Germany in Germany, told Space.com. “We believe that it could mean that the rupture of satellite Produced fragments that were much slower than the main object and produced less radiation. “
After the initial rupture at an altitude of approximately 50 miles (80 kilometers), the researchers were able to register the fragmentation for about 25 seconds. They lost the notion of the streak of fragments at an altitude of approximately 25 miles (40 km). Using filters of different colors, the equipment could decteat the release of several chemical compounds during the burned, which provides suggestions on the nature of air pollution that arises the process of incineration of the duration
“We detect lithium, potassium and aluminum,” Löhle said. “But at this stage, we don’t know how much ends in the atmosphere as a long -term air pollution and how much it falls to Land In the form of small drops. “
Satellite reentry They are a growing group For the community of global atmospheric sciences. Satellites are made of aluminum, whose incineration produces aluminum oxide, also known as alumina. Scientists know that alumina can activate ozone exhaustion And alter the ability of the Earth to reflect sunlight, which, in turn, could alter the thermal balance of the atmosphere.
With the Increase in satellite launchesMany more satellites fall to earth again. Whatever the by -products that arise during the atmospheric burned, will probably continue to accumulate over the earth in the coming years. However, the effects of this satellite air pollution are not well understood. The altitudes in which the satellites disintegrate are too high for meteorological balloons to reach but too low for satellites to show.
Aircraft persecutions, such as the one that tracked the resentment of cluster sauce last year, provide the best opportunity to collect precise data on the chemical processes that develop the duration of those events. These campaigns, however, are quite expensive and difficult to execute. Until now, only five spacecraft rents have been tracked from the air; The above cases included a stage of Ariane rocket and three International Space Station Reporting vehicles.
“At this time, researchers who model thesis really do not know what happens the duration of satellite fragmentation,” Löhle said. “That is the first thing we must answer. We want to make sure there is nothing in people’s heads. So we need how harmful this is for Earth’s environment. “
The data captured by Löhle and his colleagues suggest that the titanium fuel tanks of the 1,200 pounds (550 kilograms) of sauce may have survived the re -entry and probably splashed in the Pacific Ocean. This is an important information. On average, Three satellites return to earth every dayAccording to a report published by that last month.
Most of these satellites belong to Spacexs Star link Megaconstellation. While the first generation of Starlinks weighed only around 570 pounds (260 kg) each, the current “mini” variant of the satellite has a mass of approximately 1,760 pounds (800 kg). The planned V2 version will be even greater, with a weight of 2,750 pounds (1,250 kg). Althegh Spacex states that satellites are designed to burn completing, the company Previously recognized That some remains could occasionally reach the surface of the earth.
The European team continues to analyze the data and expect to align its observations with computer models, which could provide more information about the progression of events that revolve satellite fragmentation and sub -basketing incineration.
“We are convincing in what we have seen with satellite fragmentation models to understand how much the dough is lost in which stage,” said Jiří Šilha, CEO of Solutions, based in Slovakia, which coordinated the observation campaign, said Space.com. “Once we have an alignment between these models and our observations, we can start modeling how the fusion metal interacts with the atmosphere.”
Löhle explained that researchers so far have very little understanding of the incineration process to be able to estimate how much satellite reentry affect the atmosphere. The aluminum body in desiring of a satellite that replaces, forming large drops or molten metal. Some of these drowned are vaporized in aluminum oxide spray, while others disperse and cool, anyone drifting in the soil in the form of nano and micrometer aluminum bits. The aluminum that becomes aerosol is what then triggers the Ozone exhaustion and other climatic effects.
“We still don’t have the data to say how much it becomes the aerosol,” Löhle said. “We hope that, at some point, we can recreate a sequence of fragmentation and say how much aluminum each of the subsequent explosions released in the upper atmosphere.”
The researchers hope to collect more data when the three brothers of the grouping sauce group: Rumba, Tango and Samba – Reenter in 2025 and 2026. The satellite quartet has circulated land since 2000, measuring the magnetic field of the planet and the field of field Isttic Solar wind.
However, all these resentments will also occur during the day, which means that researchers could not obtain spectroscopy measurements, which could locate chemical processes in the fragmentation cloud with better detail. Spectroscopy is an observation method that breaks incoming light in individual wavelengths. However, the signal of a spacecraft that re -enters is too weak and drowns through the bright sunlight.
