"Spacecraft dust" from defunct satellites burning up in Earth's atmosphere could weaken our planet's magnetic field, a controversial new paper suggests.
When spacecraft end their missions, most are deorbited and burned up in Earth's atmosphere to minimize the amount of space junk circling our planet. However, as they fall apart in flames, the dying spacecraft litter our upper atmosphere with vaporized metal pollution.
And Solter-Hunt estimated between 500,000 and 1 million private satellites could orbit our planet in the coming decades. When all these satellites eventually fall to Earth it could dramatically increase the amount of spacecraft dust in the atmosphere to billions of times its current level, she said.
Worst-case scenario In Solter-Hunt's worst-case scenario, increased levels of radiation bombarding the upper ionosphere could begin to blow away the outer edges of our atmosphere — a phenomenon known as"atmospheric stripping," which has naturally occurred on planets like Mars and Mercury. 'Important first step'Some researchers praise the new paper for highlighting hidden potential issues of spacecraft dust.
"Even at the densities discussed, a continuous conductive shell like a true magnetic shield is unlikely," John Tarduno, a planetary scientist and magnetosphere expert at the University of Rochester in New York, told Live Science in an email. Some of the assumptions in the paper are also"too simple and unlikely to be correct," he added.