#aluminumoxides — Public Fediverse posts

When old satellites fall into Earth's atmosphere and burn up, they leave behind tiny particles of aluminum oxide,
🔸which eat away at Earth's protective ozone layer. 🔸
A new study finds that these oxides have 💥increased 8-fold between 2016 and 2022 💥
and will continue to accumulate as the number of low-Earth-orbit satellites skyrockets.

The 1987 Montreal Protocol successfully regulated ozone-damaging #CFCs to protect the #ozone layer,
shrinking the ozone #hole over Antarctica with recovery expected within fifty years.
But the unanticipated growth of #aluminumoxides may push pause on the ozone success story in decades to come.
Of the 8,100 objects in low Earth orbit, 6,000 are #Starlink satellites launched in the last few years.
Demand for global internet coverage is driving a rapid ramp up of launches of small communication satellite swarms.
#SpaceX is the frontrunner in this enterprise, with permission to launch another ⭐️ 12,000 Starlink satellites and as many as ⭐️42,000 planned.
#Amazon and other companies around the globe are also planning constellations ranging from 3,000 to 13,000 satellites, the authors of the study said.
Internet satellites in low Earth orbit are short-lived, at about five years.
Companies must then launch replacement satellites to maintain internet service, continuing a cycle of planned obsolescence and unplanned pollution.

Aluminum oxides spark chemical reactions that destroy stratospheric ozone, which protects Earth from harmful #UV radiation.
The oxides don't react chemically with ozone molecules, instead triggering destructive reactions between ozone and chlorine that deplete the ozone layer.
Because aluminum oxides are not consumed by these chemical reactions, they can continue to destroy molecule after molecule of ozone for decades as they drift down through the stratosphere.
https://phys.org/news/2024-06-satellite-megaconstellations-jeopardize-recovery-ozone.html