burning satilites making magnetic shunt?

[coppercone2]

https://www.yahoo.com/news/paper-claims-dying-spacex-satellites-192557146.html

So if I understand it correctly the magnetic dust from the sats is making some kind of magnetic shunt for the planet.

I think thats interesting. Or maybe its more of a shorted turn? I think the idea is that it makes a conductive plasma ring

[johansen]

This is nonsense.

A layer of magnetic material thick enough to shunt the earths magnetic field would also be thick enough that we would not need one.

[coppercone2]

I think its more like a shorted turn on a transformer (of conductive plasma filaments)

I believe its translucentish if I understand it correctly.

[RoGeorge]

Have you noticed the article doesn't say or prove anything?  All there is "potential", even the PhD is not a PhD, but a "candidate" to Phd.  That article is propaganda.

Spacex satellites has to do with Elon Musk.  Elon Musk upset the establishment, therefore he must be associated with negative outcomes in everything he does.  The message is 'Elon bad'.  Starlink is really bad for the establishment, because Elon refused to censorship his satellites.  People were able to stay in touch with the world when the establishment wanted them muted.  Elon disobeyed, and now the masters are displeased.  Bad Elon!  Bad!

[SiliconWizard]

Yeah that may sound like nonsense, that being said, I don't like much the idea of polluting the space around Earth with all this waste that we'll never be able to get rid of. (Or doing so would probably make sending satellites completely uneconomical.) And I personally don't care about who does it.

[coppercone2]

Its a idea involving physics we don't need a discussion about politics and complaining about PR or Anti-PR

I did read something about rarefied plasma forming in the upper atmosphere in quite large sections, miles across. I imagine this theory suggests that this plasma formation could increase.

I am not sure if they are thinking about Sprites. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upper-atmospheric_lightning



What would a shorted turn of plasma around the entire earth do exactly anyway?

I am still not clear if they mean shorted turn (project westford type deal) or just a magnetic particle shunt that disrupts the field lines.


Maybe they can launch a rocket in a orbit that will not last long filled with lots of pure iron dust and see what it does...

the referenced article analysis mentions conductivity, and electric charge conductivity. but that makes me think of a conductor. but they also talk about magnetic shielding, which makes me think of like a powder inductor

https://www.livescience.com/space/space-exploration/controversial-paper-claims-satellite-megaconstellations-like-spacexs-could-weaken-earths-magnetic-field-and-cause-atmospheric-stripping-should-we-be-worried

[johansen]

Hypothetically, a magnetic shell around the earth would actually increase the strength of the magnetic field, inside the shell.

[wraper]

"Satellites are mostly made of aluminum and aluminum is a superconductor," Solter-Hunt said. "Superconductors are used for blocking, distorting or shielding of magnetic fields. My concern is that at some point in the future, this conductive dust could create some perturbations in the magnetosphere."

At 1.2K temperature 

[coppercone2]

Hypothetically, a magnetic shell around the earth would actually increase the strength of the magnetic field, inside the shell.

I think its a question of cycloton motion. Not sure how the analysis works out with different size shells

[DavidAlfa]

This is junk.
The billions of micrometeorites the Earth has captured for over millions of years?
Most metals sent to the sky aren't magnetic mainly due the high weight of the steel (Aluminium, magnesium, titanium, copper...),
and will react extremely fast with the heat and the high ozone levels of the upper atmosphere during the reeentry.

Aluminum will convert so fast to aluminium oxide (Alumina), a great isolator!
And it reflects light so well that it might help with the greenhouse effect (In fact it's been already mentioned here.
Even 10K starlink satellites won't make much effect over huge 160.000 Km² outer earth surface.

[coppercone2]

not sure how well alumina is made in a vacuum or low partial pressure. aluminum oxidizes pretty darn slow. not much O2 there either.

[SiliconWizard]

not sure how well alumina is made in a vacuum or low partial pressure. aluminum oxidizes pretty darn slow. not much O2 there either.

yes, I'm wondering how you oxidize metals up there as well.

[DavidAlfa]

I don't think so when hitting the atmosphere at 17000mph, melting and coming apart at several thousands of degrees,  plus ozone is an extremely potent oxidant (Supposing it reaches that atmosphere layer).

From this article:
https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.2313374120?_ga=2.213978450.492158759.1697570369-891100340.1697570369

The metal atoms that are produced by meteoric ablation become oxidized below 85 km, and the resulting compounds condense into nm-sized meteoric smoke particles

And:
https://aerospace.org/article/satellite-reentry-manipulating-plunge

The first major breakup generally occurs at an altitude between 74 and 83 km. At this point, the object fractures into several smaller objects.

[coppercone2]

it says they cover 400-50 miles above surface. that only takes care of a thin slice. 350 - 35 = 315 miles left

[twospoons]

Just for fun, lets put some numbers on it.
Orbital altitude for Starlink is 550km, and the radius of earth is about 6300km. If the satellites were turned into a monatomic vapor shell 1m thick, the volume of that 1m thick shell would be 6x10¹⁴m³
The satellites weigh 260kg, and there are about 5500 of them for a total mass of 1430000kg
If we make the stupid assumption that the whole mass is aluminium, then apply the ideal gas law, assuming a temperature of 273K (it varies from -65C to 125C in LEO) the pressure of that mass monatomic vapor of aluminium spread into that huge volume is just 3x10^-19 Pa.

For comparison, the gas pressure in low earth orbit is already 1.3x10^-5 Pa.  That's 14 orders of magnitude higher than our vaporized satellites.
Which really means that even if we vaporized every satellite and bit of space junk currently in orbit, and stuffed it all into the same orbital space it would make fuck all difference to the gas pressure already present.

You could, however, turn the starlink satellites into a loop of wire at 550km altitude, and there are enough of them to make a wire just shy of 4mm thick that would go right around the planet.

[coppercone2]

I am not sure how much gas pressure relates to magnetic conductivity or whatever they are talking about exactly.

[ebastler]

Has anyone bothered to look at the actual paper (linked in the article which the OP refers to)?

The paper does discuss its assumptions, and one of them is that many (!) additional satellite networks beyond StarLink become active in the future, namely 100 of them. It also assumes somewhat heavier satellites, and that their whole mass is turned into microparticles in the magnetosphere upon re-entry. How realisitic all these assumptions are is up for debate, but they are all spelled out there -- in contrast to the various more or less sensationalist secondary articles which people seem to restrict themselves to.

There is no mention of superconductivity at all, by the way.