{"id":513442,"date":"2026-06-01T19:06:14","date_gmt":"2026-06-01T19:06:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/513442\/"},"modified":"2026-06-01T19:06:14","modified_gmt":"2026-06-01T19:06:14","slug":"rocket-launches-are-turning-the-upper-atmosphere-into-an-accidental-climate-experiment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/513442\/","title":{"rendered":"Rocket launches are turning the upper atmosphere into an accidental climate experiment"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Rocket<\/a>A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying the company\u2019s Crew Dragon spacecraft is launched on NASA\u2019s SpaceX Crew-5 mission to the International Space Station. Credit: NASA\/Joel Kowsky<\/p>\n

For most of the space age, rocket launches were rare. Their environmental impact was also negligible. A plume here, a plume there, nothing too damaging. The pollution they left behind was incomparably small compared with cars, power plants and heavy industry.<\/p>\n

That is changing fast.<\/p>\n

A new study<\/a> led by researchers at University College London (UCL) finds that pollution from satellite \u201cmegaconstellations\u201d (vast networks of internet satellites launched in batches) is accumulating in the upper atmosphere. By 2029, these systems could account for 42% of the total climate impact from space-sector pollution, even though the megaconstellation boom is only a few years old.<\/p>\n

Soot in space<\/p>\n

The international, multi-organizational study published in Earth\u2019s Future, looked at pollution from rocket launches, discarded rocket bodies and dead satellites burning up during reentry. The researchers modeled emissions from 2020 to 2022, then projected how those emissions could grow through the end of the decade.<\/p>\n

Their main concern is black carbon<\/a>, better known as soot.<\/p>\n

On Earth\u2019s surface, soot from cars or factories doesn\u2019t stay in the air forever as rain and weather systems help wash it out. But rockets inject soot much higher, into parts of the atmosphere where air moves slowly and cleanup is much harder. There, particles can linger for years. That makes rocket soot strangely potent. According to the study, soot released by launches can be about 540 times more effective at altering the climate than soot emitted near the surface.<\/p>\n

\u201cRocket launches are a unique source of pollution,\u201d said lead author Connor Barker of UCL Geography. He said they inject chemicals directly into upper atmospheric layers, reaching what he described as one of Earth\u2019s last relatively pristine environments.<\/p>\n

The effect isn\u2019t just simple warming. The researchers found that soot from rocket launches can slightly cool Earth\u2019s surface by blocking a small amount of sunlight. That might sound useful in a warming climate, but the scientists warn against treating it as good news.<\/p>\n

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This is a climate experiment<\/p>\n

Eloise Marais, professor at UCL Geography and project lead, called it a \u201csmall-scale, unregulated geoengineering<\/a> experiment that could have many unintended and serious environmental consequences.\u201d<\/p>\n

Geoengineering usually refers to deliberate attempts to cool the planet, such as adding particles to the stratosphere to reflect sunlight. In this case, it\u2019s not deliberate; it\u2019s an accidental side effect of a space industry launching more often, more cheaply and at far greater scale.<\/p>\n

Basically, rocket soot can slightly cool Earth\u2019s surface while warming parts of the upper atmosphere where the particles linger. But Marais said that while cooling \u201cmay sound like a welcome change,\u201d we need to be \u201cextremely cautious\u201d about something like this.<\/p>\n

\u201cCurrently the impact on the atmosphere is small, so we still have the chance to act early before it becomes a more serious issue that is harder to reverse or repair,\u201d she said. \u201cSo far there has been limited effort to effectively regulate this type of pollution.\u201d<\/p>\n

More satellites<\/p>\n

The main driver behind this is the rise of megaconstellations. SpaceX\u2019s Starlink is the best known, with over 10,000 of satellites already in orbit<\/a>. Other networks are growing or planned, including Amazon\u2019s Project Kuiper<\/a> and China\u2019s Guowang<\/a> constellation. These systems promise broadband internet across wide areas, including remote regions. But they also depend on frequent launches and regular satellite replacement.<\/p>\n

That launch cadence is rising sharply. UCL said that annual rocket launches nearly tripled from 114 in 2020 to 329 in 2025, driven largely by SpaceX\u2019s Falcon 9<\/a> rockets. Falcon 9 uses kerosene-based fuel, which produces soot during launch.<\/p>\n

The study estimates that by 2029, the space industry could release about 870 tonnes of soot into the atmosphere each year. That is roughly comparable to the soot emitted annually by all passenger cars in the United Kingdom, according to the report.<\/p>\n

Not all doom and gloom<\/p>\n

The researchers also looked at ozone. Rockets and reentering spacecraft can release chemicals and particles that alter ozone chemistry. The ozone layer protects life on Earth from harmful ultraviolet radiation, so even small changes matter.<\/p>\n

For now, the ozone effect from megaconstellations appears to be small in the grand scheme of things. By 2029, all rocket launches together are projected to deplete global ozone by about 0.02%, far below the roughly 2% ozone loss linked to substances regulated under the Montreal Protocol<\/a>.<\/p>\n

That doesn\u2019t mean the risk can be ignored. The researchers say their projections may already be too conservative. They based them on launch trends from 2020 to 2022, but launch numbers from 2023 to 2025 have already surpassed those early estimates.<\/p>\n

The broader point isn\u2019t that rockets are now a climate threat on the scale of fossil fuels. They are not. The space sector remains much smaller than major industrial sources of greenhouse gases. Rather, the concern is where the pollution actually goes. Rockets do not just add exhaust to the air people breathe. They deliver soot and chemicals straight into high atmospheric layers, where small amounts can have larger effects and linger much longer.<\/p>\n

\u201cRocket launches are a unique source of pollution, injecting harmful chemicals directly into the upper layers of the atmosphere and contaminating Earth\u2019s last remaining relatively pristine environment,\u201d Barker said. \u201cThough this soot\u2019s impact on climate is currently much smaller than other industrial sources, its potency means we need to act before it causes irreparable harm.\u201d<\/p>\n

Space may look empty from the ground. It is not. Each launch leaves a chemical trace. As satellite internet systems spread across low Earth orbit, those traces are starting to add up.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying the company\u2019s Crew Dragon spacecraft is launched on NASA\u2019s SpaceX Crew-5 mission…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":513443,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[77],"tags":[18,19,17,20304,222422,133,164190],"class_list":["post-513442","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-eire","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-megaconstellations","tag-satellitte-launches","tag-science","tag-upper-atmosphere"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116676421107969160","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/513442","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=513442"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/513442\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/513443"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=513442"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=513442"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=513442"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}