Something Surprising Is Destroying Elon Musk's Starlink Satellites

They're dropping like flies. Angry Sun Now that more than 7,000 Starlink satellites are orbiting our planet, scientists have been given a golden opportunity to study the effects the Sun's activity can have on the aggregate lifespans of such minimalist, constellation-based spacecraft. As New Scientist reports, it's turning out that ferocious solar storms caused by the Sun pelting our atmosphere with energized particles can significantly reduce the crafts' lifetimes, by prematurely pushing them to burn up during reentry. That's especially true as the Sun nears the most active part of its 11-year cycle, called the solar maximum. "We found that when we have geomagnetic storms, satellites re-enter faster than expected [without solar activity]," NASA Goddard Space Flight Center scientist Denny Oliveira, who's been investigating these effects, told New Scientist. During the solar maximum, a given Starlink satellite's lifetime can be reduced by up to ten days, demonstrating the Sun's imm ... Read full article.