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this post was submitted on 17 Jun 2024
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About 48 tons of meteorites enter the atmosphere every day. I couldn't find the elemental distribution, but I'd guess there is some aluminum in there. How much of an increase is 14 tons aluminum per year over the many tons of aluminum entering the atmosphere already? That might be good to get a rough estimate of how impactful this is.
Even assuming the meteorites are 100% aluminum it's a 30% increase which is quite significant.
From a short google search apparently only ~8% of asteroids in our solar system are metal rich which is mostly iron nickel. Rarer metals can be as rare as 100 grams per ton.
Which means of the 48 tons only 4.8 kilos could be aluminum. Compared to that the 14 tons would be a whopping ~3000% increase.
The asteroid weights are given per day while the sats per year.
Still only 1752 kg per year
4.8 kg not 48kg
Isn't it 48 tons of meteorites per day vs 14 tones of satellites per year?
Where are you getting a 30% increase?
Adding 14 tons a year to the 17,520 (48 x 365) tons of meteorites per year is a 0.07% increase (assuming that every meteorite is 100% aluminum and burns up entirely, which is definitely not reality)
Al is a major element in the solar system. Most rocks have Al2O3 on the order of 3-10 wt.%. That includes chondrites (the major class of meteorite) which have plenty of feldspar, a mineral that's like 20 wt.% Al2O3, and calcium-aluminium inclusions (CAIs), which are as their name suggests, Al-rich.
4.8kg per day gives 1.75 tons per year, giving an 800% increase. That's still really big, thanks for tracking down the numbers.