A new study has revealed that after a SpaceX rocket exploded at high altitude last year, it temporarily tore a hole in the Earth’s upper atmosphere.

In November of 2023, Elon Musk’s SpaceX officially launched its Starship rocket — the largest rocket ever built.

This first stage of the rocket, which encompassed a large part that contained one of the main engines, ended up suddenly exploding shortly after detaching from the upper part.

Then, after another 4 minutes, the rest of the Starship rocket ended up exploding when it was about 93 miles above the Earth’s ground.

Now, a new study published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters by Russian scientists has shed light on how these rocket explosions have impacted the Earth.

The Earth’s ionosphere is an important part of the planet.

Yury Yasyukevich, the study’s lead author and an ionosphere physicist, explained that holes in the ionosphere can happen. However, this is the first known time that a hole has occurred because of “catastrophic phenomena”, such as a human-made explosion.

The study explained that many satellites and stations on Earth observed this disturbance in the ionosphere.

Scientists have long known that ionospheric holes can occur because of human causes. Often, chemicals in rocket fuel can react in this part of the atmosphere, thereby creating these holes.

It appears that many studies have shown that SpaceX often causes these ionospheric holes, as its Falcon 9 rockets are prone to creating them.

Though SpaceX has been known to create these holes, the authors of this new study explain that the Starship explosion’s hole was different from the rest.

The scientists attached to this study have admitted that it’s not yet understood what the effects of these ionospheric holes are. More studies must be done. However, this SpaceX event could help them make progress in this research.