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Webinar – Analog schematic capture and simulation with Stefan Schippers [video]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3ZcpSkVVuc
1•ikbdsk•6m ago•0 comments

Operating a private 5G station in Japan

https://www.justus.pw/posts/2025-10-09-private-5g-in-japan.html
1•furkansahin•8m ago•0 comments

Why Low-Precision Transformer Training Fails: An Analysis on Flash Attention

https://huggingface.co/papers/2510.04212
1•hack_new•9m ago•0 comments

The React Foundation: The New Home for React and React Native

https://engineering.fb.com/2025/10/07/open-source/introducing-the-react-foundation-the-new-home-f...
1•DanielHB•10m ago•0 comments

Discover SilentSalt, your destination for fast, free, and unblocked online games

https://silentsalt.site
1•candseven•11m ago•0 comments

Fully Integrated 2D Flash Chip Unveiled

https://bioengineer.org/fully-integrated-2d-flash-chip-unveiled/
2•limoce•12m ago•0 comments

An E.U. Plan to Slash Micropollutants in Wastewater Is Under Attack

https://e360.yale.edu/features/europe-water-micropollutants
2•YaleE360•21m ago•0 comments

Amazon Echo Show 5 (2019) bootloader unlock

https://twitter.com/r0rt1z2/status/1976055700259238396
1•denysvitali•26m ago•0 comments

Man gets drunk, wakes up with a medical mystery that nearly kills him

https://arstechnica.com/health/2025/10/man-gets-drunk-wakes-up-with-a-medical-mystery-that-nearly...
2•sipofwater•28m ago•0 comments

Mastercard Developers Agent Toolkit

https://github.com/Mastercard/developers-agent-toolkit
1•saikatsg•30m ago•0 comments

A series of debugging sessions for Strimzi

https://github.com/fvaleri/strimzi-debugging
1•fvaleri•31m ago•0 comments

Lesser-known science fiction movies

https://rakhim.exotext.com/lesser-known-sci-fi-movies
1•freetonik•31m ago•0 comments

Connecting AgentKit and Agent Builder to Your MCPs

https://go.mcptotal.io/blog/agentkit-connected-to-mcptotal
1•agentictime•34m ago•0 comments

Fresh Takes on AI's Wild Ride in Late 2025

1•travors•36m ago•0 comments

All the hostages are coming home

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/israel-hamas-deal-release-all-hostages-gaza-trump-says/
2•ukblewis•37m ago•0 comments

Image to URL Converter

https://imagetourl.net
1•Rarpr716•37m ago•0 comments

Att&Df: Update the Operating System's "Dead Drop"

https://zenodo.org/records/17301184
1•thevieart•38m ago•1 comments

Loops of DNA Equipped Ancient Life to Become Complex

https://www.quantamagazine.org/loops-of-dna-equipped-ancient-life-to-become-complex-20251008/
1•pykello•38m ago•0 comments

The Lost Art of Semaphores

https://aivarsk.com/2025/10/09/the-lost-art-of-semaphores/
2•aivarsk•42m ago•0 comments

The words "blah blah blah" increase AI accuracy

https://medium.com/the-generator/verbosity-boosts-ai-accuracy-not-chain-of-thought-798d31f792c5
2•cmsefton•43m ago•1 comments

PowerToys has detected an app Always On Top message · Issue #30973

https://github.com/microsoft/PowerToys/issues/30973
1•stareatgoats•48m ago•0 comments

Jensen Huang says H-1B changes would've prevented his family from immigrating

https://www.cnbc.com/2025/10/08/jensen-huang-h1b-immigration-trump.html
4•belter•48m ago•3 comments

Satanic panic – how Dublin's Hellfire Club inspired a new video game

https://www.rte.ie/culture/2025/1009/1536327-how-dublins-hellfire-club-inspired-a-new-video-game/
3•austinallegro•53m ago•0 comments

The Indian messaging app that wants to take on WhatsApp

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy50299w5vwo
2•vinni2•54m ago•0 comments

Free Tools for YouTube Channels

https://utubekit.com/
2•ayushchat•56m ago•0 comments

Redis Security Advisory: CVE-2025-49844

https://redis.io/blog/security-advisory-cve-2025-49844/
3•StefanBatory•57m ago•0 comments

AI Visibility Drift: The Quiet Collapse Between Retrains

https://www.aivojournal.org/visibility-drift-the-quiet-collapse-between-retrains/
1•businessmate•57m ago•0 comments

The Unknotting Number Is Not Additive

https://divisbyzero.com/2025/10/08/the-unknotting-number-is-not-additive/
3•JohnHammersley•1h ago•0 comments

Fuzzing as the basis for effective development a case study of LuaJIT [video]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GwHZaynqh98
2•todsacerdoti•1h ago•0 comments

Room with a View

https://www.thomasmoes.com/52obsessions/room-with-a-view
2•thomoes•1h ago•0 comments
Open in hackernews

Starlink is burning up one or two satellites a day in Earth's atmosphere

https://www.theregister.com/2025/10/06/starlink_vaporizes_satellites_daily/
46•damethos•3h ago

Comments

timschmidt•2h ago
> SpaceX is deorbiting about one or two satellites daily, and that number is only going to grow.

> What that means for our planet isn't entirely clear

100 tons of meteors hit Earth every day[1], so it seems fairly clear the 800kg Starlink v2 mini satellites[2] don't amount to much. Maybe once a dozen providers are deorbiting a similar amount of mass daily, we might notice. But even then I'm not sure there would be any negative effects. This seems like clickbait scare mongering at the moment.

1: https://pressbooks.online.ucf.edu/astronomybc/chapter/14-1-m...

2: https://dishycentral.com/how-big-are-starlink-satellites

goopypoop•2h ago
> The typical meteor is produced by a particle with a mass of less than 1 gram—no larger than a pea

> The total mass of meteoric material entering Earth’s atmosphere is estimated to be about 100 tons per day

timschmidt•2h ago
... yes? Does the mass of individual meteors or satellites matter if they both burn up on [re]entry?

On average, something like 17 meteors large enough to strike the ground hit earth daily.

thayne•2h ago
The composition is different though. In particular, these satellites probably have more heavy elements for things like batteries and electronics
andsoitis•2h ago
Meteors contain various heavy metals, primarily iron and nickel, which form metallic cores of asteroids and make up the bulk of many meteorites.

They also contain other siderophilic metals, including cobalt, chromium, gold, platinum, iridium, and tungsten. The high concentration of these metals, especially precious metals like gold and platinum, is due to their affinity for sinking to the core of early planets and asteroids, which are remnants of the primordial solar system.

timschmidt•2h ago
Further, satellites like Starlink's are engineered to burn up on re-entry. Meaning that they are manufactured of materials known to combust at re-entry velocities in thicknesses and shapes appropriate to that end.
eesmith•2h ago
One key difference is the satellites have a lot of aluminum - a light element - while meteors do not.

Estimates I've seen are that the amount of Al in the upper atmosphere will be dominated by satellite demise. And we don't know how that will affect things.

The history of CFC and the ozone layer suggests caution.

SeanAnderson•2h ago
I had no idea 100 tons of external material was entering our atmosphere each day. Fascinating.
timschmidt•1h ago
An additional tidbit: this is not enough mass to offset the amount of helium and hydrogen which escapes Earth's atmosphere daily. Earth is on net losing mass. Eventually, Earth will lose all the hydrogen locked in it's oceans via this process. Not sure if that's destined to happen before or after we're engulfed by the expanding sun though.
khuey•1h ago
At the current rate of loss Earth has 150 billion years worth of hydrogen.
rkomorn•1h ago
Well that's bad news for all the infrastructure projects in my current city and country. They're gonna run out of hydrogen before our subway extension is finished.
fumblertzu•2h ago
but those 100 tons do not contain that much aluminum. I remember a story where the aluminum aerosols may have a strong effect https://cires.colorado.edu/news/within-15-years-plummeting-s...
timschmidt•2h ago
At least 1.4% of Earth is aluminum. Meteors will have similar composition on average. Aluminum smelting likely vaporizes a much larger volume of material.
eesmith•1h ago
That aluminum is not in the upper atmosphere. Quoting https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-89909-7.pdf

> ... the satellites are mostly aluminum; most meteoroids, in contrast, contain less than 1% Al by mass 25 . Thus, depending on the atmospheric residence time of material from reentered satellites, each mega-constellation will produce fine particulates that could greatly exceed natural forms of high-altitude atmospheric aluminum deposition, particularly if the full numbers of envisaged satellites are launched. Anthropogenic deposition of aluminum in the atmosphere has long been proposed in the context of geoengineering as a way to alter Earth’s albedo 26 . These proposals have been scientifically controversial and controlled experiments encountered substantial opposition 27 . Mega-constellations will begin this process as an uncontrolled experiment 28 .

Or from https://www.science.org/doi/pdf/10.1126/science.adr9689

> Concerns are mostly focused on aluminum, the most common component in satellites. If the disintegrated metal ends up as aluminum oxide or hydroxide, it can react with hydrogen chloride — the main reservoir of chlorine in the stratosphere, a hangover from the days of chlorofluorocarbons — to produce aluminum chloride. Hydrogen chloride is a relatively safe repository for chlorine, but aluminum chloride is easily split apart by light, freeing the chlorine to destroy ozone. Metal aerosols could also seed the creation of more polar stratospheric clouds, which catalyze reactions that liberate destructive forms of chlorine. “One can speculate, but without critical laboratory measurements of the chemistry, it’s very hard to know [the effects],” says John Plane, an atmospheric chemist at the University of Leeds. ... “You have to wonder whether [SpaceX] is creating a major problem 30 years from now,” Lionnet says.

timschmidt•46m ago
It's tough to find figures, but the amount of aluminum lost during smelting not accounted for in dross is as much as half a percent. World smelting capacity is 113 million tons per year. Which maths to as much as 565,000 tons of vaporized aluminum per year.

You're right that it's released into the lower atmosphere, though I'm sure smoke stacks loft that significantly in many cases. And it's difficult for me to believe that a few hundred kg per day, even if all of it ended up in the upper atmosphere, is anything more than a blip in comparison to what lofts up from industry.

The difference would have to be many thousands of times worse for upper atmosphere releases for it to even register.

throwup238•2h ago
It’s closer to 43+-14 tons and most of that is cosmic dust [1] and most of that is under a millimeter in size [2].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_dust

[2] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0012821X2...

mrtksn•2h ago
I think probably means SpaceX will need to keep sending rockets at rate of 1 or 2 satellites per day to replenish the infra. How much impact sending 800kg satellite into low orbit has?

(in batches, obviously)

kaonwarb•2h ago
I was disappointed to learn approximately nothing from this article about why this matters.
wmf•2h ago
Based on the previous discussion, it releases pollution that may or may not matter.
SapporoChris•2h ago
I found this one weird trick. I select key words in an article and use an internet search to answer probing questions like 'why this matters'.

For example: Near the top of the article is the sentence: "Kessler syndrome is bad; atmospheric incineration may be worse, says astrophysicist Jonathan McDowell"

So, I searched for "kessler syndrome". Here's the hyperlink for reference: https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=kessler+syndrome&ia=web

Now here is the cool part. I found a Wikipedia article about "kessler syndrome" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome and it explained why this matters!

kataklasm•1h ago
When have we given up on expecting journalists to do their jobs and write articles worthy of being read and containing actual information? If I wanted to read blubberish I'd go read some AI slop but if an article is written by a human I have some base expectation of it providing a modicum of value to me. Even more so if it reaches the HN frontpage.

edit: removed my own snark. sorry for that.

beeflet•1h ago
this has nothing to do with kessler syndrome. If anything, it's the opposite: satellites that are low in orbit deorbiting naturally. The article fails to explain why deorbiting sattelites at this frequency is bad, it just loosely suggests it with nothing to back up the claim.

The earth's atmosphere is pretty big, and sattelites are just made out of aluminum and crap. I don't think it is a big deal.

I could search this topic on google scholar for hours, but I can already tell the result is that I would probably find nothing of substance.

mgoetzke•1h ago
It matters because it helps the "Elon Bad" storyline, that seems to be the connecting thread between all these "reports" whether about SpaceX or Tesla by some news outlets which dont even do the due diligence of putting the stories into any kind of perspective or try to find out if the implied premise of the headline is true or should even matter to the casual reader.
treyd•2h ago
> The current strategy to de-orbit Starlink satellites, which operate in a low orbit below 600 kilometers, is to use the satellites' thrusters to move them to such a low orbit that they eventually catch drag in the atmosphere and burn up in what McDowell calls an "uncontrolled but assisted" reentry.

This is misleading, they're already in a very low orbit and would deorbit on their own in a just few years. They can manoeuver to explicitly deorbit on command, but they need active stationkeeping to stay up there for extended periods.

taneq•1h ago
Yeah, I thought this was a 'feature' (basically a hedge against them contributing to Kessler syndrome).
NaOH•2h ago
Three days ago:

One to two Starlink satellites are falling back to Earth each day - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45493143 - 6 Oct 2025 (336 comments)

stephc_int13•2h ago
I think the question to ask would be about the cost of maintaining that fleet.

Cost of building + launch, per satellite, any ideas?

How much is Elon _actually_ burning here? Is Starlink going to have a positive ROI at some point?

blargthorwars•2h ago
Starlink is crazy profitable. Source: Son has SpaceX stock and sees the audited financial reports in a locked room in Redmond.
saltyoldman•1h ago
Simplistically this is likely very true, if they have only 10m customers, that's like 12 billion a year. They can easily launch 12 times a year with 60 per launch, that's 720 replacements a year. Each launch is about 15m, so just replacing them each month they are spending 15m out of the 1b profit. Not bad.

And that's if they only have 10m customers - which I suspect is a lot more considering it's a worldwide service.

ChrisArchitect•1h ago
[dupe] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45493143
Gathering6678•25m ago
I wonder if there's a comparison between level of (a) pollution from satellites burning, and (b) pollution from other sources. If (a) is only a tiny amount compared to (b), I think this is not a significant issue.