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A Falcon 9 upper stage burned up over Europe last February, and German scientists just caught it doing something to the atmosphere nobody had directly measured before
Scientists in Germany have reported the first direct detection of upper-atmospheric pollution linked to the reentry of a specific piece of space debris, after a SpaceX Falcon 9 upper stage burned up over Europe in February 2025 and left behind a measurable plume of lithium. The finding does not prove a catastrophe is unfolding above Earth. It does something more basic, and potentially more important: it shows that a single reentering rocket stag…
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