It might sound like a plot cooked up by a cartoon villain, but a city in southwestern China is aiming to launch into space an artificial moon that could replace streetlights by bathing the ground in a “dusk-like glow.”
[...] the satellite’s mirror-like exterior would reflect sunlight down to Earth, creating a glow about eight times brighter than the moon. The artificial moon, which he said would orbit about 500 kilometers above Earth, could save $174 million in electricity from streetlights.
— NBC News
The capital of China's Sichuan province, Chengdu, could have its own illumination satellite 'moon' up in the skies by 2020, according to the People's Daily.
Light pollution, and its documented health effects on humans and nocturnal wildlife, doesn't seem to be much of a concern to the officials behind the audacious space-mirror scheme. As Kang Weimin, Director of the Institute of Optics, School of Aerospace at Harbin Institute of Technology, attempts to reassure: "The light of the satellite is similar to a dusk-like glow, so it should not affect animals’ routines." – Okay, we're all cool.
2 Comments
somehow, this does not seem like a good thing.
What's not to like?
This idea and others like it have been floating around for decades. It's nice to see space being developed in a non-military, non-commercial way.
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