Elon Musk’s space company SpaceX launched 15 Starlink satellites to low-Earth orbit on top of a Falcon 9 rocket from the Vandenberg Space Force Base in California on July 19. While doing so, Musk’s space technology firm might have also punched a hole in the Ionosphere of the planet.
The Ionosphere is a series of regions in the Earth’s atmosphere which contains electrically charged atoms and molecules. It is crucial for communications and navigation systems since radio and GPS signals travel via Ionosphere or they rely on bouncing off it to reach its destination. Any change in the Ionosphere’s composition and density can disturb the signals.
A website Spaceweather.com reported that SpaceX’s launch on July 19 has caused a hole in the Ionosphere. Space physicist Jeff Baumgardner of Boston University reportedly said that this is a well-studied phenomenon when rockets are burning in their engines 200-300 km above the Earth’s surface. A red glow appears when the exhaust gasses from the rocket’s 2nd stage recombine the ionosphere quickly.
The rocket engines spray water and carbon dioxide into the atmosphere which reduces local ionisation by almost 70 per cent. SpaceX had used similar rocket engines in the starlink satellites that were launched. This sometimes creates a complicated series of reactions that produces a certain red light. This red light was fortunately captured by photographer Jeremy Perez.
Holes that are created by this phenomenon can stand as a threat to low-frequency radio communication and also cause glitches in GPS navigation systems. Reionisation usually begins soon after the sun rises and thus these effects are temporary.