Collateral Damage When a multi-ton spacecraft blows up mid-air, it turns out that you can't just brush aside its environmental impact. Following the explosion of the upper stage of SpaceX's Starship which sent fiery streaks of debris raining over the Caribbean, a scientist warned that the rocket's spectacular demise may have caused significant amounts of atmospheric pollution. "This event potentially released an estimated 45.5 tonnes of metal oxides and 40 tonnes of reactive nitrogen into the upper atmosphere," wrote Connor Barker, a research fellow at TK, in a LinkedIn post highlighted this week by Space.com. That's about 35 percent of […]