Elon Musk's Space X rocket punctures Ionosphere. Will it affect Earth?
Elon Musk founded Space X's Falcon 9 rocket has punched a hole in the Ionosphere, a part of the 10,000 kilometres Atmosphere. One Falcon 9 Rocket launched 22 Starlink satellites to orbit 23 July, Sunday, and landed the returning rocket on a ship at sea, according to reports. Elon Musk founded Space X's Falcon 9 Rocket is a reusable, two-stage rocket for ‘reliable and safe transport’ of people and payloads into Earth orbit and beyond, as explained in the company website. The Falcon 9 rocket has conducted 240 launches and 198 landings.
Falcon 9 rocket was launched on 19 July from the Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. SpaceX claims that the Falcon 9 is the world’s first orbital-class reusable rocket. The 19 July launch of the Space X's Falcon 9 rocket showed faint red glow, which caught the attention of space physicist Jeff Baumgardner from Boston University. According to reports, the physicist later explained that upon carefully studying the red glow, it was understood to be a creation of a hole in the ionosphere.
"This is a well-studied phenomenon when rockets are burning their engines 200 to 300 km above Earth's surface," Baumgardner told spaceweather.com. "I reviewed footage from the July 19 launch. It shows the second stage engine burning at 286 km near the F-region peak for that time of day.
So, it is quite possible that an ionospheric 'hole' was made," he added. This is not the first time a Elon Musk founded Space X's Falcon 9 rocket has caused environmental damage. According to Science Times, Falcon 9 was launched from Vanderberg Space Force Base carrying FORMOSAT-5 payload on 24 August 2017. Due to the low weight, the rocket launched along a vertical path rather than travelling parallel to the surface
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