The night sky is gaining a new type of spectacle and a new concern, luminous trails crossing the atmosphere seen from several countries, they are not meteors, nor random reentries, they are Starlink SpaceX satellites burning up as they return to Earth at an accelerated rate.
According to astronomer Jonathan Mcdowell of the Harvard and Smith Sonyan Center for Astrophysics, between one and four Starlink satellites will re-enter the atmosphere each day in 2025, an unprecedented record. With the expansion of SpaceX's global constellation, which already accounts for more than 8,500 of the 12,000 active satellites in orbit, that number could reach five per day in the coming months.
Created by Elon Musk in 2002, SpaceX transformed the aerospace sector with reusable rockets and a massive network of satellites dedicated to the global internet. But this growth now generates a new type of invisible pollution, orbital, Starling satellites have a useful life of around 5 years and are designed to self-destruct at the end of their cycle, completely burning the atmosphere, so, although the incandescent traces may seem alarming, scientists affirm that there is no direct risk for people on the ground, however, the increase in frequency is a warning sign.
McDowell said that “every few months there are reports of space equipment not burning completely and falling as debris.” And he concluded, “so far we have been lucky, but that luck will not last forever.” As SpaceX plans to launch tens of thousands of new satellites over the next decade, experts warn that the growing volume of objects in orbit increases the risk of collisions and fragments of space debris, of course, wandering at speeds of up to 28,000 km/h.
Even if the Starling satellites burn up completely, the process is not harmless; scientists are investigating the chemical impacts of these re-entries in the upper atmosphere.
During combustion, satellites release aluminum oxide particles that could affect the ozone layer and alter the thermal balance at higher altitudes.
Preliminary models suggest that, if the trend continues, metallic fallout from burning satellites could cause cumulative effects on climate and atmospheric composition, a growing concern in this mega-constellation area. McDowell sums up the uncertainty, “we still don't know whether the impact will be small enough to be ignored or large enough to force us to rethink the entire orbital debris strategy.” For now, the spectacle of Musk's stars burning on the horizon remains more beautiful than dangerous, but as the constellation grows, things could change.
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