44 tonnes of meteorite per day falls into the atmosphere! [1]
There are 8000 satellites in orbit (including dead ones). Seems like most are under 1 tonne. That's 8000 tonnes maximum so if it all comes down in 1 year (somehow), it's less than the mass of meteorites for that year.
Some spectral lines are much more prominent, some elements/molecules will stay there longer, it can't be compared only by weight.
Also, if Starship is successful as planned, means on average several tons launched per day, most of which mass to be deorbited just few years later. Starlink plans to deorbit thousands of satellites per year, V2 are 800kg already, likely getting heavier if launching gets cheaper.
Satellites are significantly more metal-rich than meteors—also it's clear with Starship and multiple large (10,000+) satellite constellations that the total deorbited mass annually is only going to grow.
>“We didn’t expect there to be so much iron density at that altitude. It comes from meteors that enter the atmosphere at high speed, burn up and [then] the metal atoms are left suspended. The iron layer is normally a little bit higher. In our case, we hypothesized that on that day there were gravity waves [a wave phenomenon in the air] and the iron layer was lowered,” says Passas Varo.
That still sounds like so many different things happening at the right time, but that would also explain their elusive nature and difficulty to capture and study.
Yep, for those times when the Youtube algo can't satisfy my general content cravings, Pecos Hank's channel is the first I scroll to in my subscription list.
Interesting, and at 3:49 of that video, we see that a shooting star/meteorite enters the scene on the right, which is the recipe for these "ghosts" as it contributes iron particles to the atmosphere that result in this phenomenon, according to the hypothesis.
It's at least a different field though, and the world is full of endless amounts of overlapping acronyms. I was in a meeting the other day where people were talking about CFA forms, I found at least 6 different meanings across 6 different fields from finances to felines before I gave up.
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[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 40.1 ms ] thread44 tonnes of meteorite per day falls into the atmosphere! [1]
There are 8000 satellites in orbit (including dead ones). Seems like most are under 1 tonne. That's 8000 tonnes maximum so if it all comes down in 1 year (somehow), it's less than the mass of meteorites for that year.
[1] https://science.nasa.gov/solar-system/meteors-meteorites/
Also, if Starship is successful as planned, means on average several tons launched per day, most of which mass to be deorbited just few years later. Starlink plans to deorbit thousands of satellites per year, V2 are 800kg already, likely getting heavier if launching gets cheaper.
That still sounds like so many different things happening at the right time, but that would also explain their elusive nature and difficulty to capture and study.
https://www.youtube.com/@PecosHank
Here's one of his videos about the green ghosts: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIaYOdujmz4
He gives good security advice for tornado chasers too.
Very interesting read.
This confused me no end