Elon Musk’s Starlink satellites boast impressive efficiency, yet they might be causing more environmental damage than benefit. A former NASA physicist has accused Musk’s company of increasing exposure to lethal cosmic rays for everyone on Earth.
SpaceX has been actively deploying its Starlink satellites, positioning them in Low-Earth Orbit (LEO) to enhance connection speeds and reduce latency. To date, the company has placed over 5,500 satellites in space, and Musk aims to add thousands more.
Dr. Sierra Solter-Hunt, a physicist, has expressed concerns that large numbers of inexpensive satellites, such as those from Starlink, could potentially disrupt Earth’s magnetosphere.
In her study, submitted on December 6, 2023, Dr. Solter-Hunt highlights that Musk’s space company is burning up over 2,755 lbs (1.3 tons) of wireless internet satellite junk into Earth’s atmosphere per hour.
The study details that the debris from satellite re-entries has accumulated a mass far greater than that of the Van Allen radiation belts, a zone of energetically charged particles.
Earth’s magnetosphere, which captures solar wind particles and shields the planet from harmful cosmic and solar radiation, relies on a magnetic field to maintain the planet’s atmosphere.
Dr. Solter-Hunt expressed her astonishment to the Daily Mail: “I was very surprised. No one has given much research to the accumulation of metal dust from the space industry.”
The current count of around 10,000 satellites is expected to grow significantly within a decade
She equated the lack of a magnetic field, and the resultant atmospheric degradation on Mars and Mercury, to the potential effects of accumulating conductive metallic waste around Earth.
Dr. Solter-Hunt pointed out the current count of around 10,000 satellites, expecting it to grow significantly within a decade or two. She warned, “By the time we get to 100,000 I think it could be too late.”
The study said, “Satellite re-entries may create a global band of plasma dust with a charge higher than the rest of the magnetosphere. Therefore, perturbation of the magnetosphere from conductive satellites and their plasma dust layer should be expected and should be a field of intensive research.”
The study added that human activity is not only impacting the atmosphere, but it is also impacting the ionosphere.
This is not the first study to question Starlink satellites in orbit, another study published in the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics on August 10, 2023, claimed that the satellites are also creating a hurdle for humans to explore space.