>Space junk returning to the Earth is introducing metal pollution to the pristine upper atmosphere as it burns up on re-entry, a new study has found.
>Published today in the journal Communications Earth & Environment, the study was led by Robin Wing from the Leibniz Institute of Atmospheric Physics in Germany.
>Using highly sensitive lasers, he and his team of international researchers observed a plume of lithium pollution, tracking it back to the uncontrolled re-entry of a discarded SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket upper stage.
>This is the first observational evidence that re-entering space debris leaves a detectable, human-caused chemical fingerprint in the upper atmosphere. This was also the first time a pollutant plume from a specific space junk re-entry event has been monitored from the ground.
>With many more satellite launches planned for the future, this event won’t be the last. It highlights the urgent need for governments and the space industry to tackle this problem before it gets out of hand.
Comfortable-Shoe9543 on
Someone should write a strongly worded letter to Musk.. that’ll fix it.
Muppet_Dr_John on
Now available without prescription
mfb- on
> This was also the first time a pollutant plume from a specific space junk re-entry event has been monitored from the ground.
Thousands of satellites have reentered over time. This being the first says a lot about how hard it is to detect anything.
BLAZER_101 on
Articles like this have been posted before but people agreeing that there is a tangible real world effect get downvoted to all hell. Even in this, there is now scientific proof.
It‘s sad because it takes studying to know there is an effect to begin with and then even more studies to understand what can result from it. Just like hydrocarbons in the past, damage happens whilst all this is going on and in a rapidly developing industry due to the shear amount going up and down in the atmosphere there should consistent monitoring.
In the end, the people launching all this stuff want as little amount of regulations as possible because there’s 10’s of billions to be made.
LynxWorx on
That does sound interesting. How does that compare to the usual natural space debris that enters the atmosphere every day?
Not_my_Name464 on
Ah, Elon Musk – savior to mankind 🙄
mosaic-aircraft on
The article doesn’t actually explain how the science actually affects the atmosphere. It would be great to read a comparison between how this is different to meteors.
“On 20 February 2025, they captured a clear, sudden enhancement in lithium ions from lithium batteries and human-made metal casings used in satellites. These are quite distinct from natural meteor material.”
notelon on
Switching from Falcon 9 expendable 2nd stage to Starship’s fully reusable architecture solves this issue.
idiotsecant on
is there some evidence this is bad
MyPublicFace on
I think we found the Chemtrails!
qoou on
Wait. Does this qualify as a chem-trail? Didn’t Florida just pass some legislation making chem-trails illegal? Irony!
NombreCurioso1337 on
It makes it worse when you remember that SpaceX’s goal is to replace NASA (take their govt money) with a private company that caters to the military industrial complex.
Hipster_Dragon on
This post reminds me of the fear mongering around nuclear power. Run a cost benefit analysis of this “problem” – how much will reusability and space access help humanity and how much will this “gotcha” hurt.
MrSeeYouP on
So I’m pretty dumb, but space x reusable rockets seem less bad compared to the current alternative where boosters get dumped into the ocean no??
Delladv on
Is it worse than disposing of the rocket after every single launch?
Is is worse than launching hypergolic or solid rockets?
Chacin_Cologne_No1 on
How does the cumulative impact of the “several tonnes of spacecraft material [that] will burn up in the upper atmosphere every single day [by 2030]” compare to the cumulative impact of vaporized meteors? I assume at least “several tons” of vaporized meteors fall to earth every day too, and that’ll include aluminum and all kinds of trace elements like magnesium, sulfides, chromium, tungsten, and all kinds of organic compounds.
What seems more immediately worrying for the upper stratosphere, mesosphere, and lower thermosphere are the sheer number of launches, given that we know “chlorine emissions related to rocket launches and re-entries may slow the ozone layer’s recovery.”
Holden_Coalfield on
Moving fast and breaking things
Vipitis on
If you can’t bring up spent stages or depleted satellites anymore, it will only cause more Kessler Syndrome. or have more objects survive reentry and pose a danger to people on the surface.
I doubt it’s avoidable and to some degree it’s natural. metal meteors also burn up. So I would be interested to see some numbers in mass/year of “natural” versus artificial burnup.
Maybe I should read the actual paper myself and find the answers.
toolguy8 on
Where are the chemtrail haters when we actually need them?
Rohit_BFire on
Grandpa had Lead and Asbestos in him
Dad had Fluorocarbons in him
I got microplastics in me.
My offspring will probably have lithium in him.
IdiocracyTooSoon on
We don’t know ow who struck first. Us or Them. But we know it was us that scorched the sky.
Striking_Tension6000 on
Good thing we allowed him to completely eradicate any forms of oversight during his DOGE purge.
ERedfieldh on
Oh great…now the chemtrail assholes have ammunition.
As of right now it seems like we’re not sure what the effect of these particles are in our atmosphere. Not that it makes anything ok. I guess the chemtrail folks should start focusing their ire on this.
ktown247365 on
Like all pollution, the polluters are NEVER held accountable.
[deleted] on
[deleted]
Decronym on
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I’ve seen in this thread:
|Jargon|Definition|
|——-|———|—|
|[Starlink](/r/Space/comments/1rchig9/stub/o6yrl8c “Last usage”)|SpaceX’s world-wide satellite broadband constellation|
|[hypergolic](/r/Space/comments/1rchig9/stub/o6ydozr “Last usage”)|A set of two substances that ignite when in contact|
Decronym is now also available on Lemmy! Requests for support and new installations should be directed to the Contact address below.
Wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. This doesn’t make any sense. SpaceX is a private corporation, and private corporations always take extreme care to make sure that their actions don’t harm the general public!
mrchaddy on
Is there anything that Musk won’t ruin ?
SG810 on
Put him in jail once and for all.
old_graybush on
Wonder where the ethics of a man who’s trying to colonize the next planet land in regards to trying to preserve our current planet
I am far from knowledgable on anything space related, just a passing thought.
MonkeyManJohannon on
Here’s a really complex breakdown of the event and what they were doing when this plume was identified…and also how such plumes do not exist in any noticeable way outside of these re-entry events. Some really fascinating info provided…
Half the population of Corpus Christi is going to have cancer in a few years thanks to SpaceX rocket fuel pollution. Which is the main reason he moved operations to Texas – they don’t care.
pmmeyourfannie on
Everything he touches turns to shit. I’m ashamed my country gave this conman a penny. Fuck SpaceX and fuck America for enabling SpaceX
CaveDances on
Corporations often dump costs on the rest of the planets inhabitants in order to secure their own vision and profit. Everything needs to have a cost benefit analysis to determine if it’s beneficial to continue production given current technological progression. Regardless, they should pay for externalities.
HopDavid on
In addition to the upper stages SpaceX is also deorbiting about a tonne of End-Of-Life (EOL) StarLink satellites every day.
An obstacle with rotovators is need for an anchor mass several orders of magnitude greater than the payloads it catches/throws. Else a Catch or a throw would wreck the rotovator orbit.
Well, between upper stages and EOL sats, Elon Musk is presently throwing away a lot of mass that could go towards building a rotovator’s orbital momentum bank.
Boosting satellites to a higher orbit while dropping an upper stage to a lower orbit is also a momentum exchange that lessens need for propellant.
And shaving a km/s or two off of re-entry velocity might make upper stage re-use doable. Something Musk needs to achieve to realize his goal of opening the solar system as a new frontier.
theoreoman on
How does this compare to the 40-100 tons per day of meteorites that fall onto earth
freddbare on
300 flaming cheap Chinese EV”s/rocket ..
Afoxinthefridge on
Oh wow, up to a million satellites? That’s insane! I thought it was just gonna stop in the tens of thousands!
40 Comments
>Space junk returning to the Earth is introducing metal pollution to the pristine upper atmosphere as it burns up on re-entry, a new study has found.
>Published today in the journal Communications Earth & Environment, the study was led by Robin Wing from the Leibniz Institute of Atmospheric Physics in Germany.
>Using highly sensitive lasers, he and his team of international researchers observed a plume of lithium pollution, tracking it back to the uncontrolled re-entry of a discarded SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket upper stage.
>This is the first observational evidence that re-entering space debris leaves a detectable, human-caused chemical fingerprint in the upper atmosphere. This was also the first time a pollutant plume from a specific space junk re-entry event has been monitored from the ground.
>With many more satellite launches planned for the future, this event won’t be the last. It highlights the urgent need for governments and the space industry to tackle this problem before it gets out of hand.
Someone should write a strongly worded letter to Musk.. that’ll fix it.
Now available without prescription
> This was also the first time a pollutant plume from a specific space junk re-entry event has been monitored from the ground.
Thousands of satellites have reentered over time. This being the first says a lot about how hard it is to detect anything.
Articles like this have been posted before but people agreeing that there is a tangible real world effect get downvoted to all hell. Even in this, there is now scientific proof.
It‘s sad because it takes studying to know there is an effect to begin with and then even more studies to understand what can result from it. Just like hydrocarbons in the past, damage happens whilst all this is going on and in a rapidly developing industry due to the shear amount going up and down in the atmosphere there should consistent monitoring.
In the end, the people launching all this stuff want as little amount of regulations as possible because there’s 10’s of billions to be made.
That does sound interesting. How does that compare to the usual natural space debris that enters the atmosphere every day?
Ah, Elon Musk – savior to mankind 🙄
The article doesn’t actually explain how the science actually affects the atmosphere. It would be great to read a comparison between how this is different to meteors.
“On 20 February 2025, they captured a clear, sudden enhancement in lithium ions from lithium batteries and human-made metal casings used in satellites. These are quite distinct from natural meteor material.”
Switching from Falcon 9 expendable 2nd stage to Starship’s fully reusable architecture solves this issue.
is there some evidence this is bad
I think we found the Chemtrails!
Wait. Does this qualify as a chem-trail? Didn’t Florida just pass some legislation making chem-trails illegal? Irony!
It makes it worse when you remember that SpaceX’s goal is to replace NASA (take their govt money) with a private company that caters to the military industrial complex.
This post reminds me of the fear mongering around nuclear power. Run a cost benefit analysis of this “problem” – how much will reusability and space access help humanity and how much will this “gotcha” hurt.
So I’m pretty dumb, but space x reusable rockets seem less bad compared to the current alternative where boosters get dumped into the ocean no??
Is it worse than disposing of the rocket after every single launch?
Is is worse than launching hypergolic or solid rockets?
How does the cumulative impact of the “several tonnes of spacecraft material [that] will burn up in the upper atmosphere every single day [by 2030]” compare to the cumulative impact of vaporized meteors? I assume at least “several tons” of vaporized meteors fall to earth every day too, and that’ll include aluminum and all kinds of trace elements like magnesium, sulfides, chromium, tungsten, and all kinds of organic compounds.
What seems more immediately worrying for the upper stratosphere, mesosphere, and lower thermosphere are the sheer number of launches, given that we know “chlorine emissions related to rocket launches and re-entries may slow the ozone layer’s recovery.”
Moving fast and breaking things
If you can’t bring up spent stages or depleted satellites anymore, it will only cause more Kessler Syndrome. or have more objects survive reentry and pose a danger to people on the surface.
I doubt it’s avoidable and to some degree it’s natural. metal meteors also burn up. So I would be interested to see some numbers in mass/year of “natural” versus artificial burnup.
Maybe I should read the actual paper myself and find the answers.
Where are the chemtrail haters when we actually need them?
Grandpa had Lead and Asbestos in him
Dad had Fluorocarbons in him
I got microplastics in me.
My offspring will probably have lithium in him.
We don’t know ow who struck first. Us or Them. But we know it was us that scorched the sky.
Good thing we allowed him to completely eradicate any forms of oversight during his DOGE purge.
Oh great…now the chemtrail assholes have ammunition.
Not sure if science alert is a trustable website, so here’s the source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-025-03154-8
As of right now it seems like we’re not sure what the effect of these particles are in our atmosphere. Not that it makes anything ok. I guess the chemtrail folks should start focusing their ire on this.
Like all pollution, the polluters are NEVER held accountable.
[deleted]
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I’ve seen in this thread:
|Fewer Letters|More Letters|
|——-|———|—|
|[C3](/r/Space/comments/1rchig9/stub/o6ymbbq “Last usage”)|[Characteristic Energy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Characteristic_energy) above that required for escape|
|DoD|US Department of Defense|
|[LEO](/r/Space/comments/1rchig9/stub/o6yoazw “Last usage”)|Low Earth Orbit (180-2000km)|
| |Law Enforcement Officer (most often mentioned during transport operations)|
|[STP](/r/Space/comments/1rchig9/stub/o6ypmhy “Last usage”)|[Standard Temperature and Pressure](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_conditions_for_temperature_and_pressure)|
| |[Space Test Program](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Test_Program), see STP-2|
|STP-2|[Space Test Program 2](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Test_Program#Upcoming_Activities), DoD programme, second round|
|Jargon|Definition|
|——-|———|—|
|[Starlink](/r/Space/comments/1rchig9/stub/o6yrl8c “Last usage”)|SpaceX’s world-wide satellite broadband constellation|
|[hypergolic](/r/Space/comments/1rchig9/stub/o6ydozr “Last usage”)|A set of two substances that ignite when in contact|
Decronym is now also available on Lemmy! Requests for support and new installations should be directed to the Contact address below.
—————-
^(5 acronyms in this thread; )[^(the most compressed thread commented on today)](/r/Space/comments/1r98f1h)^( has 15 acronyms.)
^([Thread #12190 for this sub, first seen 23rd Feb 2026, 15:22])
^[[FAQ]](http://decronym.xyz/) [^([Full list])](http://decronym.xyz/acronyms/Space) [^[Contact]](https://hachyderm.io/@Two9A) [^([Source code])](https://gistdotgithubdotcom/Two9A/1d976f9b7441694162c8)
Wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. This doesn’t make any sense. SpaceX is a private corporation, and private corporations always take extreme care to make sure that their actions don’t harm the general public!
Is there anything that Musk won’t ruin ?
Put him in jail once and for all.
Wonder where the ethics of a man who’s trying to colonize the next planet land in regards to trying to preserve our current planet
I am far from knowledgable on anything space related, just a passing thought.
Here’s a really complex breakdown of the event and what they were doing when this plume was identified…and also how such plumes do not exist in any noticeable way outside of these re-entry events. Some really fascinating info provided…
https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-025-03154-8
Half the population of Corpus Christi is going to have cancer in a few years thanks to SpaceX rocket fuel pollution. Which is the main reason he moved operations to Texas – they don’t care.
Everything he touches turns to shit. I’m ashamed my country gave this conman a penny. Fuck SpaceX and fuck America for enabling SpaceX
Corporations often dump costs on the rest of the planets inhabitants in order to secure their own vision and profit. Everything needs to have a cost benefit analysis to determine if it’s beneficial to continue production given current technological progression. Regardless, they should pay for externalities.
In addition to the upper stages SpaceX is also deorbiting about a tonne of End-Of-Life (EOL) StarLink satellites every day.
In 2016 Elon Musk responded to John Carmack indicating he was considering the notion of rotovators: [Link](https://x.com/ID_AA_Carmack/status/757551370702434306?lang=en).
An obstacle with rotovators is need for an anchor mass several orders of magnitude greater than the payloads it catches/throws. Else a Catch or a throw would wreck the rotovator orbit.
Well, between upper stages and EOL sats, Elon Musk is presently throwing away a lot of mass that could go towards building a rotovator’s orbital momentum bank.
And EOL StarLink sats still have ion engines and solar panels. These could be used on a rotovator. Prolonged use of ion engines will gradually build up momentum making the rotovator a [momentum capacitor](https://hopsblog-hop.blogspot.com/2023/06/orbital-tethers-as-momentum-capacitors.html).
Boosting satellites to a higher orbit while dropping an upper stage to a lower orbit is also a momentum exchange that lessens need for propellant.
And shaving a km/s or two off of re-entry velocity might make upper stage re-use doable. Something Musk needs to achieve to realize his goal of opening the solar system as a new frontier.
How does this compare to the 40-100 tons per day of meteorites that fall onto earth
300 flaming cheap Chinese EV”s/rocket ..
Oh wow, up to a million satellites? That’s insane! I thought it was just gonna stop in the tens of thousands!