Space Weather News for April 28, 2026
Free Space Weather Newsletter

A GIANT UNCONTROLLED EXPERIMENT IN ATMOSPHERIC CHEMISTRY: It's only April,
but satellite re-entries this year have already added more than 5 metric tons of aluminum oxide to Earth's upper atmosphere. SpaceX is the primary contributor, but their competitors are catching up in this unprecedented planetary-scale chemistry experiment. Full story @ Spaceweather.com.

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* SLMR 2.1a * I wish Noah had swatted those two mosquitoes.....
--- SBBSecho 3.28-Linux
* Origin: Capitol City Online (1:2320/107)

A GIANT UNCONTROLLED EXPERIMENT IN ATMOSPHERIC CHEMISTRY: It's only April,

>but satellite re-entries this year have already added more than 5 metric tons
>of aluminum oxide to Earth's upper atmosphere. SpaceX is the primary
>contributor, but their competitors are catching up in this unprecedented
>planetary-scale chemistry experiment. Full story @ Spaceweather.com.

I assume you mean they are doing this purposely, it's not just some
side effect of the launches and materials burning up in flight?

(I briefly went to that web site but that story wasn't mentioned
on the main Spaceweather.com page.)

There was talk about doing this quite a while ago by Bill Gates
originally I think but the project was quickly abandoned.

The idea is the aluminum will reflect away sunlight to combat
global warming but I'd think that doing it would be temporary
as the Oxide works it's way eventually back to the ground and,
if somehow it is a permanemt thing, we may regret it when the
next ice age crops up (which is actually over-due).

Anyone who thinks global warming is something new that we
created hasn't paid attention to earth history. It's happened
over and over again through the centuries, the last time when
stories like Noah's Ark came into being due to massive world
wide coastal flooding after the polar ice caps melted.
There are roughly 215 stories spanning 5 continents that
talked about a Great Flood at that time..

A lot of people panic over that but, again, if you read the
scientific history, they figure the earth has had NO polar ice
caps for possibly up to 80% of its existance..

Maybe Global Warming is not a disaster, just a correction back
to 'normal'..

---
* SLMR Rob * It beeped and said "Countdown initiated." Is that bad?
* Origin: Capitol City Online (1:2320/107)

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A GIANT UNCONTROLLED EXPERIMENT IN ATMOSPHERIC CHEMISTRY: It's only April,

>but satellite re-entries this year have already added more than 5 metric tons
>of aluminum oxide to Earth's upper atmosphere. SpaceX is the primary
>contributor, but their competitors are catching up in this unprecedented
>planetary-scale chemistry experiment. Full story @ Spaceweather.com.

I assume you mean they are doing this purposely, it's not just some
side effect of the launches and materials burning up in flight?

The article was more about side effects and the fact that, thanks to
private companies, there are a LOT more satellites than ever before. Many
of them are in low orbit and not meant to stay in space for a long time
like the older ones, so they re-enter and burn up a lot more often than the older ones.

The idea is the aluminum will reflect away sunlight to combat
global warming but I'd think that doing it would be temporary
as the Oxide works it's way eventually back to the ground and,
if somehow it is a permanemt thing, we may regret it when the
next ice age crops up (which is actually over-due).

That might have been baked into the idea of "let us launch our own
low-orbit satellite fleets," but I don't think it is the primary objective
of the satellites in question. The ones particularly mentioned -- SpaceX
-- are mostly for providing satellite internet coverage. Most of the
others are for providing some service the companies can make $$$ off of.

Anyone who thinks global warming is something new that we
created hasn't paid attention to earth history. It's happened
over and over again through the centuries, the last time when
stories like Noah's Ark came into being due to massive world
wide coastal flooding after the polar ice caps melted.
There are roughly 215 stories spanning 5 continents that
talked about a Great Flood at that time..

A lot of people panic over that but, again, if you read the
scientific history, they figure the earth has had NO polar ice
caps for possibly up to 80% of its existance..

Maybe Global Warming is not a disaster, just a correction back
to 'normal'..

Agree. We have a hand in accelerating the process, but not in creating it.


* SLMR 2.1a * ASCII stupid question - get a stupid ANSI
--- SBBSecho 3.28-Linux
* Origin: Capitol City Online (1:2320/107)