Megaconstellations like SpaceX's could weaken Earth's magnetic field, atmosphere

This article highlights a problem at the science-mass media boundary: it ends with refutals from other scientists studying space debris, and a short reply to the refutals.

Having people in the field argue against a paper is expected, and the whole point of peer reviewing. That's how they (hopefully) converge on a model everyone agrees on. However, if you're not actively researching space debris, the better stance in the matter would be "oh, shit, we should probably tread carefully until we know more."

I think the fundamental problem is that the ending makes it polarized, instead of curious, and makes no attempt to explain what the precautionary path would be. I'm sure even the refuters would like to know if this is true or not.

For me, not in the field, this writing style feels dismissive. I'm no wiser if this is a problem or not, but I guess it doesn't matter, because it's three refuters against two believers. Were they cherry-picked to have three refuters by some journalistic formula, or are there actually more opponents than proponents?

It's not helped by the fact that it is (only) a proponent (Lawler) who says "we need more studies," not an opponent.

(If I knew how to write, I would be writing science news, not complaining about it.)

If we can influence it we can hopefully also control it

@dang can we please update this title to actually reflect the source title: "Controversial paper claims satellite 'megaconstellations' like SpaceX's could weaken Earth's magnetic field and cause 'atmospheric stripping.' Should we be worried?"

Generally, no this isnt possible. The planet's magnetic field is generated naturally by the movement of so much hot iron and other elements it eclipses the total of most of the other freely available metals in the solar system.

The Earth isn't the biggest planet, but we have the biggest single conglomeration of metals outside of the gas giants. Combine Luna, Mars, and all of the known asteroids and it only almost comes to a similar mass.

A few dozen tons of launched material isn't going to have any noticeable impact on our magnetic field.

The paper in question was never peer reviewed despite all the press attention it gets from the media. It was even written by someone who isn't a professor at any university.

> The Van Allen Belts are two torus-like regions of trapped solar energizing particles that protect the atmosphere. The mass of the Van Allen Belts is 0.00018 kilograms. The masses of other parts of the magneto- sphere (ring current, plasmasphere, etc) are not widely estimated but are less dense than the Van Allen Belts. The mass of one second generation Starlink satellite is 1250 kilograms[7], in which all of the mass will become conductive particulate in 5 years during re-entry demolishment and will be added to the lower ionosphere for an indefinite time. Thus, the space industry is adding enormous amounts of material to the magnetosphere in comparison to the magnetosphere’s natural level of particulate and this is forming a layer of artificial plasma dust in the meteor ablation zone. Due to the conductive nature of the satellite material, this may perturb or change the magnetosphere. A depletion or change of the magnetosphere could subsequently have an impact on the atmosphere.

lol

To me, it's crazy that we're doing a lot of weird stuff with global implications in the hands of an unaccountable corporation. If I were a random nation state, I would start taking down those satellites for a sport.