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Q&A: Rocket launches are proliferating. What is this doing to the atmosphere?

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Summary
Nutrition label

80% Informative

Since 2017 , both the number of launches and the size of their cargo loads have grown dramatically, with ever bigger rockets carrying ever larger numbers of satellites and other objects per launch.

There are now about 10,000 satellites in low- Earth orbit, and thousands more that have stopped working.

Everything sent into orbit will eventually fall back to Earth , and as launches increase, so will re-entries of failed or decommissioned spacecraft.

Kostas Tsigaridis is an atmospheric scientist at the Columbia Climate School's Center for Climate Systems Research .

The heating of the stratosphere from black carbon heats up the tropopause, allowing water to "leak" into stratosphere.

This alters the chemistry and destroys stratospheric ozone.

Space debris is a very different story, and the burning happens higher up, in the mesosphere.

VR Score

84

Informative language

84

Neutral language

58

Article tone

informal

Language

English

Language complexity

52

Offensive language

not offensive

Hate speech

not hateful

Attention-grabbing headline

not detected

Known propaganda techniques

not detected

Time-value

long-living

Source diversity

2

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