The ozone layer surrounding the Earth is crucial to human welfare. It absorbs the sun’s damaging UV radiation. Depletion of the ozone layer has been a major problem for decades, but thankfully, some determined worldwide action has slowed it down. But a fresh danger now seems to be arising. Previously the purview of national space agencies, space travel has started to make space exploration more accessible to citizens. It is reasonable to assume that there will be more launches as it becomes more widely available and reasonably priced.
Researchers have now issued a warning that such a situation might erase our progress and reignite the ozone layer hole.
Researchers from the University of Canterbury have written a new article in the Journal of the Royal Society of New Zealand and have warned that harmful chemicals from possibly large number of rocket launches in a not-so-distant future may deal a damage to Ozone layer.
The researchers said that rocket launches release harmful chemicals directly into the middle and upper atmosphere, where the protective ozone layer resides
In addition to emissions from the rockets, debris from these launches that falls back to Earth all the while burning in the atmosphere damages the Ozone layer as well.
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