THE SUN IS FLATLINING: The sun's X-ray output is flatlining today despite the presence of three significant sunspot groups. Not one of the sunspots is flaring. Is this the calm before the storm or genuine quiescence? It feels like quiescence. Our prediction: A quiet weekend. Solar flare alerts: SMS Text.
STARSHIP 13 UPDATE! The Starship 13 mission described below has launched, and it has successfully deployed 20 V3 Starlink satellites. Those massive satellites quickly reentered Earth's atmosphere, creating a string of bright fireballs and a massive cloud of aluminum oxide over the southern Indian Ocean.
A NEW CATEGORY OF SATELLITE REENTRY EVENT: SpaceX's Starship 13 megarocket is on the launch pad in Texas, waiting to lift off later today (Friday, July 24th at 5:45 pm CDT). If the launch goes as planned, it will cement a new category of satellite reentry event -- rapid-fire, deliberate, and very massive.
Satellites reenter Earth's atmosphere all the time -- a few per day, typically. It's a slow drizzle of human tech raining back onto our planet. Most are old first-generation Starlinks.
Starship 13 will do something very different. It will deploy 20 V3 Starlinks -- "super Starlinks," ten times more capable and roughly seven times the mass of the first-generation models. All 20 will burn up in Earth's atmosphere within an hour of liftoff. It is a "swarm reentry," pre-planned by SpaceX.
Why would SpaceX do this? It's a test. The new satellites are so massive they need a megarocket like Starship to reach orbit, and the main purpose of this flight is to prove Starship can deploy them. But because the test flight is suborbital, the satellites fall back almost immediately.
If you add up the mass of all 20 satellites it comes to ~38,000 kg or about 80 times the normal daily mass of Starlinks reentering the atmosphere. Because V3s are rich in aluminum, their sudden reentry will create an enormous spike in aluminum oxide deposition-- the very compound that studies show can deplete the ozone layer.
Flight 13 is not the first time Starship has dumped tons of Starlink-mass into the atmosphere in a single day. It is actually the fourth, starting with Flight 10 back in August 2025. However, those previous flights deployed dummy satellites presumably containing much less aluminum. That makes #13 unprecedented. You can watch the launch here.
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STERLING SILVER SPACE CAT PENDANT:Are you looking for a far-out gift? Consider the Sterling Silver Space Cat. On July 22nd, the students of Earth to Sky Calculus launched it to the stratosphere onboard a cosmic ray research balloon:
You can have it for $139.95. This feline astronaut is made of genuine sterling silver and hangs from a matching 18-inch sterling silver chain. It is a purrfect birthday, anniversary or belated graduation gift.
The students are selling space pendants to pay the helium bill for their cosmic ray ballooning program. Each one comes with a greeting card showing the jewelry in flight and telling the story of its trip to the stratosphere and back again.
Far Out Gifts: Earth to Sky Store
All sales support hands-on STEM education
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