Spacecraft Metals Left In the Wake of Humanity's Path To the Stars

Scientists recently noticed that the chemical fingerprint of meteor particles was starting to change. And last month Purdue University announced that "The Space Age is leaving fingerprints on one of the most remote parts of the planet - the stratosphere - which has potential implications for climate, the ozone layer and the continued habitability of Earth."Using tools hitched to the nose cone of their research planes and sampling more than 11 miles above the planet's surface, researchers have discovered significant amounts of metals in aerosols in the atmosphere, likely from increasingly frequent launches and returns of spacecraft and satellites. That mass of metal is changing atmospheric chemistry in ways that may impact Earth's atmosphere and ozone layer... Led by Dan Murphy, an adjunct professor in Purdue's Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences and a researcher at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the team detected more than 20 elements in ratios that mirror those used in spacecraft alloys. They found that the mass of lithium, aluminum, copper and lead from spacecraft reentry far exceeded those metals found in natural cosmic dust. Nearly 10% of large sulfuric acid particles - the particles that help protect and buffer the ozone layer - contained aluminum and other spacecraft metals. Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader AmiMoJo for sharing the article.

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