Could SpaceX satellites weaken Earth’s magnetic field? To understand

A group of scientists claim that magnetic dust released by space satellites could weaken the magnetic field of Earth’s atmosphere.. The situation may be even worse when it comes to SpaceX’s mega-satellite constellations; This would produce enough dust to destabilize the planet’s protective shield and reduce its functionality by half; The consequences will be major disasters involving satellites.

In a paper published on the preprint server arXiv, University of Iceland doctoral candidate Sierra Solter explains: Humanity is expected to place more than 500,000 satellites into Earth orbit over the next few decades.

The biggest problem is large constellations, as these devices will stop working and disintegrate in the Earth’s atmosphere; This reaction will create a layer of electrically charged particles around the planet. We can compare the result of this to an apocalyptic movie scenario.

As the study explains, Debris from a single deorbited Starlink satellite is nearly seven times larger than the Van Allen Belts – They are regions of charged particles that are suppressed by the Earth’s magnetic field. In other words, a full megaconstellation of these spacecraft is about billions of times larger, and according to Solter, this could become a major setback in the near future.

“As megaconstellations grow larger, the Debye length of their satellite particles can exceed the length of the cislunar medium and form a globally conductive layer around the Earth. Thus, satellite re-entries can create a spherical band of plasma dust with a larger charge than the rest of the magnetosphere. Therefore, disruption of the magnetosphere by conductive satellites and their plasmatic dust layer should be expected and be an area of ​​intense research. “Human activities not only affect the atmosphere, but also clearly affect the ionosphere,” he explains in the introduction to the article.

Satellites and Earth’s magnetic field

The scientist notes that the conductive nature of satellite debris is a big problem because in high amounts it can affect the Earth’s magnetic field. In another study conducted in 2023, researchers suggest that 10% of aerosols detected in the stratosphere contain aluminum and other metals from satellites and rockets that disintegrate when re-entering the atmosphere.

It is important to highlight Some researchers seem to disagree with the apocalyptic claims made by Solter and other researchers who put forward the same scenario. In fact, they explain that this may all be very speculative or based on assumptions that are not entirely accurate.

Sierra said he’s okay with being completely wrong, but he wants other scientists to read the paper so everyone can try to understand what the future holds in that scenario.

“This is a classic physics undergraduate problem. Let’s say you place a conductive shell (satellite debris) around a spherical magnet (Earth). Outside the shell, the magnetic field reaches zero due to shielding effects. This is a highly simplified comparison, of course, but we could actually be doing this to our planet… We can’t dump endless amounts of conductive dust into the magnetosphere and expect some kind of effect,” Solter adds.

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