Increasing greenhouse gas emissions will reduce the atmosphere’s ability to burn up old space junk, MIT scientists report.
Increasing greenhouse gas emissions will reduce the atmosphere’s ability to burn up old space junk, MIT scientists report.
MIT aerospace engineers have found that greenhouse gas emissions are changing the environment of near-Earth space in ways that, over time, will reduce the number of satellites that can sustainably operate there.
In a study appearing today in Nature Sustainability, the researchers report that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases can cause the upper atmosphere to shrink. An atmospheric layer of special interest is the thermosphere, where the International Space Station and most satellites orbit today. When the thermosphere contracts, the decreasing density reduces atmospheric drag — a force that pulls old satellites and other debris down to altitudes where they will encounter air molecules and burn up.
Less drag therefore means extended lifetimes for space junk, which will litter sought-after regions for decades and increase the potential for collisions in orbit.
Read more at Massachusetts Institute of Technology
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