When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works. Starship debris from IFT-7 falls through the sky. (Image credit: Dean Olson via Twitter) The rapid unscheduled disassembly (aka explosion) of SpaceX's Starship megarocket that rained scorching fragments of metal across the Caribbean in mid-January may have released significant amounts of harmful air-pollution into the upper layers of Earth's atmosphere. The rocket's upper stage blew up at an altitude of around 90 miles (146 kilometers) according to astronomer and space debris expert Jonathan McDowell, and weighed some 85 tons without propellant. Its plunge back to Earth through the atmosphere may have generated 45.5 metric tons of metal oxides and 40 metric tons of nitrogen oxides, according to University College London atmospheric chemistry researcher Connor Barker. Nitrogen oxides in particular are known for their potential to damage Earth's protective ozone layer. Barker, who had recently published an inventory of rocket emissions and pollutants from satellite re-entries in the journal Nature, posted the estimates on his LinkedIn profile shortly after the mishap. He, however, stressed in an email to Space.com that the numbers are a rough, preliminary estimate rather than an accurate calculation of the accident's environmental impact. In Barker's LinkedIn post, however, the scientist said that the amount of metallic air pollution potentially produced in the accident equals that generated by one third of meteorite material that burns up in Earth's atmosphere every year. You may like