Leonard Schulz (TU Braunschweig) wird am 08.10.2026 auf unserem IAP-Kolloquium einen Vortrag zum Thema "Space waste: Atmospheric reentries of spacecraft and their influence on Earth’s atmosphere" halten.

Zusammenfassung:

The surge in space activities in recent years, mainly driven by large satellite constellations consisting of thousands of satellites, has increased the mass input of defunct satellites and rocket stages into Earth’s atmosphere. There, this space waste ablates and releases considerable amounts of vapor and aerosol particles. Comparison of this input with the natural input from ablating meteoroids shows that atmospheric matter injection from space waste is significant and for several metal elements already dominating. As the material is transported downwards from mesospheric ablation altitudes to the lower stratosphere, manifold effects on Earth’s atmosphere are conceivable such as the catalytic destruction of ozone, effects on cloud nucleation, as well as radiative effects. This talk will provide both the quantification of the current and future space waste atmospheric input and elucidate the likely, but poorly understood material pathway and possible atmospheric effects.