Is the satellite ball surrounding Earth messing with the ionosphere?

[hosshead]

https://arxiv.org/pdf/2312.09329.pdf

Pretty interesting article.
Wonder about all the debris too.

[Lady Fraktor]

Interesting but from just a quick scan I see that some numbers that they put forward as important are actually wrong.
I will definitely give it a closer read later.

[AntennaGuy]

Yeah, I haven't tried to work thru those numbers either, but I would be quite surprised if anything humans are doing in regard to dust and plasma generation could rise to the levels of entirely natural effects, except in highly localized regions over short-lived timescales. It's tough to rearrange nature. Question: Is that author assuming that falling/failing satellites are vaporized and turn into plasma? Seems to me that when they "burn up" on reentry, that process would rather rapidly form neutral particles that should tend to settle out. Hmm. Maybe I'm missing something. After all, it's not like Skylab was simply converted 100% into ionospheric plasma when it came down. And let's not forget about all those natural meteors. "An estimated 25 million meteoroids, micrometeoroids and other space debris enter Earth's atmosphere each day,... which results in an estimated 15,000 tonnes of that material entering the atmosphere each year," says Wikipedia. Hmmm!

[Graeme1858]

This too:

A NEW PROBLEM WITH SATELLITE MEGACONSTELLATIONS? Earth's magnetic field helps us navigate and protects us from solar storms. It's crucial. However, a new study suggests that satellite megaconstellations could be tampering with our planet's magnetism by depositing a shell of conductive material in the upper atmosphere. Full story @ Spaceweather.com.

Graeme

[hosshead]

It's certainly got some "itchy" places in the data for me as well.... I do think it's interesting, though and certainly worth attending to as a concept as we keep adding to that ball.
We didn't really worry all that much about underarm deodorant aerosols and refrigeration methods either for quite the longest time until some atmospheric scientists noticed a hole in the sky

[Greenman]

It's certainly got some "itchy" places in the data for me as well.... I do think it's interesting, though and certainly worth attending to as a concept as we keep adding to that ball.
We didn't really worry all that much about underarm deodorant aerosols and refrigeration methods either for quite the longest time until some atmospheric scientists noticed a hole in the sky

I agree, I'm not going to go over the numbers but our ability to pollute our planet knows no limit. Megaconstellations of satellites pumped up there by Corporations are not for the benefit of mankind, but for the further enrichment of of the few. Let's not carry this legacy further into space.

[hosshead]

AGREED!