[HN Gopher] Origin of mysterious green 'ghosts' in the sky has b...
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Origin of mysterious green 'ghosts' in the sky has been discovered
Author : belter
Score : 85 points
Date : 2023-12-13 13:36 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (english.elpais.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (english.elpais.com)
| rini17 wrote:
| With stratosphere full of burned deorbited satellites, we might
| see more colors in future.
| kortilla wrote:
| The satellites are dwarfed by meteors. They won't make a
| difference
| EnigmaFlare wrote:
| I was curious about that:
|
| 44 tonnes of meteorite per day falls into the atmosphere! [1]
|
| There are 8000 satellites in orbit (including dead ones).
| Seems like most are under 1 tonne. That's 8000 tonnes maximum
| so if it all comes down in 1 year (somehow), it's less than
| the mass of meteorites for that year.
|
| [1] https://science.nasa.gov/solar-system/meteors-meteorites/
| rini17 wrote:
| Some spectral lines are much more prominent, some
| elements/molecules will stay there longer, it can't be
| compared only by weight.
|
| Also, if Starship is successful as planned, means on
| average several tons launched per day, most of which mass
| to be deorbited just few years later. Starlink plans to
| deorbit thousands of satellites per year, V2 are 800kg
| already, likely getting heavier if launching gets cheaper.
| lukealization wrote:
| Satellites are significantly more metal-rich than meteors--
| also it's clear with Starship and multiple large (10,000+)
| satellite constellations that the total deorbited mass
| annually is only going to grow.
| XzAeRosho wrote:
| >"We didn't expect there to be so much iron density at that
| altitude. It comes from meteors that enter the atmosphere at high
| speed, burn up and [then] the metal atoms are left suspended. The
| iron layer is normally a little bit higher. In our case, we
| hypothesized that on that day there were gravity waves [a wave
| phenomenon in the air] and the iron layer was lowered," says
| Passas Varo.
|
| That still sounds like so many different things happening at the
| right time, but that would also explain their elusive nature and
| difficulty to capture and study.
| pelorat wrote:
| I wholeheartedly recommend the YouTube channel of Hank Schyma,
| aka Pecos Hank.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/@PecosHank
|
| Here's one of his videos about the green ghosts:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIaYOdujmz4
| lobo_tuerto wrote:
| That's a pretty sweet channel for storm lovers.
|
| He gives good security advice for tornado chasers too.
| fuzzbazz wrote:
| Even on a 1080p monitor the 2160p version of that video is much
| clearer than the 1080p version, the timelapses look blocky,
| compressed.
| chankstein38 wrote:
| He's SO enjoyable to watch!
| iszomer wrote:
| Yep, for those times when the Youtube algo can't satisfy my
| general content cravings, Pecos Hank's channel is the first I
| scroll to in my subscription list.
| ElijahLynn wrote:
| Interesting, and at 3:49 of that video, we see that a shooting
| star/meteorite enters the scene on the right, which is the
| recipe for these "ghosts" as it contributes iron particles to
| the atmosphere that result in this phenomenon, according to the
| hypothesis.
| erremerre wrote:
| First time I ever seen someone I know in the newspaper.
|
| Very interesting read.
| misnome wrote:
| > ghost; that term is also the acronym for "Green emissions from
| excited Oxygen in Sprite Tops."
|
| This confused me no end
| infotropy wrote:
| Yeah, it's GOST not GHOST. maybe they spell the acronym as
| GhOST or G(h)OST to add to the number of skipped characters.
| userbinator wrote:
| Unfortunately GOST is already an acronym in use:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GOST
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(page generated 2023-12-13 23:00 UTC)