Latest research: "Falcon 9" rocket disintegration causes atmospheric lithium atom concentration to skyrocket tenfold in high altitudes.

On February 1, 2025, the American space exploration technology company launched a "Falcon 9" rocket from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California to send "Starlink" satellites into orbit. Due to an engine failure, the rocket's second stage did not land in the designated area as planned, and instead fell into the atmosphere at a height of nearly 100 kilometers above the west coast of Ireland on February 19 of the same month, disintegrating in the sky over central Europe. Many people witnessed the spectacular sight of the rocket burning in the night sky. Scientists from the Leibniz Institute for Atmospheric Physics in Germany measured a tenfold increase in the concentration of lithium atoms at high altitudes in the area where the second stage of the rocket entered the atmosphere about 20 hours later. The researchers said that the abnormal increase in lithium concentration was not a natural phenomenon, but was due to the release of a large amount of lithium atoms from the lithium batteries in the rocket and the lithium-aluminum alloy used in the rocket body during the burning of the rocket.