In Chengdu, there is reportedly an ambitious plan afoot for replacing the city’s streetlights: boosting the glow of the real moon with that of a more powerful fake one.
The southwestern Chinese city plans to launch an illumination satellite in 2020.
The artificial moon is “designed to complement the moon at night,” though it would be eight times as bright, the People’s Daily reported.
The “dusk-like glow” of the satellite would be able to light an area with a diameter of 10km to 80km, while the precise illumination range could be controlled within tens of meters — enabling it to replace streetlights.
The vision was shared by Chengdu Aerospace Science and Technology Microelectronics System Research Institute Co (CASC) chairman Wu Chunfeng (武春風) at a national mass innovation and entrepreneurship event in Chengdu last week.
Wu reportedly said testing had begun on the satellite years ago and the technology had now evolved enough to allow for a launch in 2020.
It was not clear whether the plan had the backing of the Chengdu City Government or the Chinese government, although CASC is the main contractor for the Chinese space program.
The People’s Daily report credited the idea to “a French artist, who imagined hanging a necklace made of mirrors above the Earth which could reflect sunshine through the streets of Paris all year round.”
The likelihood of Chengdu’s fake moon rising remains to be seen, but there are precedents for the “moonage” daydream rooted in science, though the technology and ambitions differ.
In 2013, three large computer-controlled mirrors were installed above the Norwegian town of Rjukan to track the movement of the sun and reflect its rays down on the town square.
“Rjukan — or at least a small, but vital part of Rjukan — is no longer stuck where the sun don’t shine,” the Guardian reported at the time.
In the 1990s, a team of Russian astronomers and engineers succeeded in launching a satellite into space to deflect sunlight back to the Earth, briefly illuminating the night-time hemisphere.
The Znamya experiment was to “test the feasibility of illuminating points on Earth with light equivalent to that of several full moons,” the New York Times reported.
“Several” proved an overstatement, but the design was shown to be sound.
A more ambitious attempt, Znamya 2.5, was made in 1999, prompting preemptive concerns about light pollution disrupting nocturnal animals.
A German Ministry of Economics and Technology spokesman was less concerned, saying: “It’s a bit early for April Fool jokes, but this sounds like one.”
However, Znamya 2.5 misfired on launch and its creators failed to raise the funding for another attempt.
The People’s Daily was quick to reassure those concerned about the fake moon’s impact on nighttime wildlife.
It cited Harbin Institute of Technology Institute of Optics, School of Aerospace director Kang Weimin (康為民), who “explained that the light of the satellite is similar to a dusk-like glow, so it should not affect animals’ routines.”
Two former Chilean ministers are among four candidates competing this weekend for the presidential nomination of the left ahead of November elections dominated by rising levels of violent crime. More than 15 million voters are eligible to choose today between former minister of labor Jeannette Jara, former minister of the interior Carolina Toha and two members of parliament, Gonzalo Winter and Jaime Mulet, to represent the left against a resurgent right. The primary is open to members of the parties within Chilean President Gabriel Boric’s ruling left-wing coalition and other voters who are not affiliated with specific parties. A recent poll by the
TENSIONS HIGH: For more than half a year, students have organized protests around the country, while the Serbian presaident said they are part of a foreign plot About 140,000 protesters rallied in Belgrade, the largest turnout over the past few months, as student-led demonstrations mount pressure on the populist government to call early elections. The rally was one of the largest in more than half a year student-led actions, which began in November last year after the roof of a train station collapsed in the northern city of Novi Sad, killing 16 people — a tragedy widely blamed on entrenched corruption. On Saturday, a sea of protesters filled Belgrade’s largest square and poured into several surrounding streets. The independent protest monitor Archive of Public Gatherings estimated the
Irish-language rap group Kneecap on Saturday gave an impassioned performance for tens of thousands of fans at the Glastonbury Festival despite criticism by British politicians and a terror charge for one of the trio. Liam Og O hAnnaidh, who performs under the stage name Mo Chara, has been charged under the UK’s Terrorism Act with supporting a proscribed organization for allegedly waving a Hezbollah flag at a concert in London in November last year. The rapper, who was charged under the anglicized version of his name, Liam O’Hanna, is on unconditional bail before a further court hearing in August. “Glastonbury,
FLYBY: The object, appears to be traveling more than 60 kilometers per second, meaning it is not bound by the sun’s orbit, astronomers studying 3I/Atlas said Astronomers on Wednesday confirmed the discovery of an interstellar object racing through the solar system — only the third-ever spotted, although scientists suspect many more might slip past unnoticed. The visitor from the stars, designated 3I/Atlas, is likely the largest yet detected, and has been classified as a comet, or cosmic snowball. “It looks kind of fuzzy,” said Peter Veres, an astronomer with the International Astronomical Union’s Minor Planet Center, which was responsible for the official confirmation. “It seems that there is some gas around it, and I think one or two telescopes reported a very short tail.” Originally known as A11pl3Z before
RSS