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Artificial Moon

The moon is a mirror

By Karen GillanahPublished 2 years ago 11 min read
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When it comes to the moon, all of us can think of the wonderful dream of Change running to the moon and the rigorous hardship of Wu Gang fetching laurels, and when we think deeper, we can think of man landing on the moon and technological progress. However, it is also because of the continuous progress of technology that we humans have a bold idea - "artificial moon".

The so-called artificial moon is a kind of artificial lighting satellite carrying a large space reflector, in layman's terms, the artificial moon is a mirror, and its function is to reflect the sun's light to Earth at night.

According to scientists' preliminary estimates, the artificial moon reflects sunlight for a long time, and its brightness should be as much as eight times higher than that of the moon. The experiments related to the artificial moon have been conducted for a long time and were scheduled to be launched in 2020, but people have been waiting for a long time, and still haven't waited for any news about it.

So why do we want to launch an artificial moon, and what are the advantages and disadvantages of an artificial moon for us? Let's take a look at the questions.

The past life of the artificial moon

The idea of an artificial moon first originated in France when an artist from Paris proposed the idea that he wanted to reflect the sun's rays into Paris by placing a mirror in the city's night sky, making Paris as bright as dusk at night, even without streetlights and other lighting tools.

The former Soviet Union attempted an artificial moon project in the 1990s when they launched a satellite called Znamya into Earth orbit. The hope was that a giant space mirror would reflect sunlight like the moon, extending sunlight hours and providing additional energy for cities.

Sadly, however, the satellite burned up on re-entry and eventually, the former Soviet Union decided the project was too expensive and terminated it.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia also attempted to launch an artificial sun in the hope of finding a cheaper source of illumination for more remote cities located in Siberia. in 1999, they launched a 25-meter-wide mirror satellite into space, Znamya 2. unfortunately, the Znamya 2 project also failed, and no one has attempted an artificial moon since then.

In 2018, our newspaper published a report about the "artificial moon": we plan to launch a new satellite called "artificial moon" in 2020. The satellite will act like an amplifier, illuminating the real moon at night and brightening city streets eight times.

The country plans to put a giant 24-meter-wide mirror into geosynchronous orbit, because satellites in geosynchronous orbit will remain relatively stationary with their targets on Earth, and in layman's terms, we will see an additional artificial moon in the sky that will remain stationary.

Plans indicate that the function of this artificial moon will be to focus sunlight on the city of Chengdu. If the plan is successful, Chengdu, a city of 14 million people, will have bright nights.

Night lights in the sky

Theoretically, the launch of the artificial moon would help reduce the electricity consumption of Chengdu's streetlights, saving $174 million annually from an economic standpoint. More importantly, the artificial moon would help serve as a backup light source in the event of a natural disaster or another emergency.

But some say the current design of the "artificial moon" cannot meet people's needs because its expected brightness is only about one-fifth of that of a normal streetlight.

So it seems that the artificial moon has many advantages, then why China originally planned to launch the first "artificial moon" in 2020 is nowhere to be found?

The launch was not on time in 2020 mainly because the launch and operation, and maintenance of the artificial moon need to consider many factors, and there are still many problems to overcome in the plan, such as the Sichuan basin being covered by clouds all year round, resulting in the artificial moon can produce the desired effect is still an unknown, so the launch plan will be postponed.

On the contrary, the country plans to launch three artificial moons in the future to ensure that at least one of them is always in the best position to reflect sunlight.

And the luminosity of these artificial moons can still be manually adjusted, and their sunlight-reflecting function can be turned off if needed. It is expected that the brightness of the three satellites will be adjusted to a maximum that together will be able to illuminate 3975 square kilometers.

Disadvantages of artificial moons

The artificial moon, if it appears, will bring us many benefits, but there is no denying that the appearance of the artificial moon may bring some bad effects, so we need to look at the artificial moon rationally and be proactive and analyze the possible shortcomings of ourselves.

First of all, some experts say that the appearance of artificial moons may have a significant impact on local wildlife. For example, the brightness of the moon may affect the behavior of certain species, such as sea turtles that pick full moon days to lay their eggs and coral reefs that accelerate their reproductive activities during the full moon.

Although Chengdu has neither sea turtles nor coral reefs, it is unclear whether the presence of an artificial moon would hurt local wildlife.

Secondly, after hundreds of millions of years of evolution, we have adapted to a world with only one moon, what would be the effect on us if there were three more moons in the sky, and there is not yet an accurate answer to this effect.

Following, the author of the artificial moon on our life of simple speculation, the artificial moon in addition to the destruction of the beauty of the night sky, and light pollution may also disrupt our day and night patterns. The disruption of circadian patterns may lead to poor sleep quality in areas with severe light pollution, making them more prone to obesity, diabetes, and mood disorders.

Technology is a double-edged sword, although the emergence of the artificial moon may have some adverse effects on our life, I believe that these adverse effects can be effectively solved in the future. Artificial Moon

The moon is a mirror

When it comes to the moon, all of us can think of the wonderful dream of Change running to the moon and the rigorous hardship of Wu Gang fetching laurels, and when we think deeper, we can think of man landing on the moon and technological progress. However, it is also because of the continuous progress of technology that we humans have a bold idea - "artificial moon".

The so-called artificial moon is a kind of artificial lighting satellite carrying a large space reflector, in layman's terms, the artificial moon is a mirror, and its function is to reflect the sun's light to Earth at night.

According to scientists' preliminary estimates, the artificial moon reflects sunlight for a long time, and its brightness should be as much as eight times higher than that of the moon. The experiments related to the artificial moon have been conducted for a long time and were scheduled to be launched in 2020, but people have been waiting for a long time, and still haven't waited for any news about it.

So why do we want to launch an artificial moon, and what are the advantages and disadvantages of an artificial moon for us? Let's take a look at the questions.

The past life of the artificial moon

The idea of an artificial moon first originated in France when an artist from Paris proposed the idea that he wanted to reflect the sun's rays into Paris by placing a mirror in the city's night sky, making Paris as bright as dusk at night, even without streetlights and other lighting tools.

The former Soviet Union attempted an artificial moon project in the 1990s when they launched a satellite called Znamya into Earth orbit. The hope was that a giant space mirror would reflect sunlight like the moon, extending sunlight hours and providing additional energy for cities.

Sadly, however, the satellite burned up on re-entry and eventually, the former Soviet Union decided the project was too expensive and terminated it.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia also attempted to launch an artificial sun in the hope of finding a cheaper source of illumination for more remote cities located in Siberia. in 1999, they launched a 25-meter-wide mirror satellite into space, Znamya 2. unfortunately, the Znamya 2 project also failed, and no one has attempted an artificial moon since then.

In 2018, our newspaper published a report about the "artificial moon": we plan to launch a new satellite called "artificial moon" in 2020. The satellite will act like an amplifier, illuminating the real moon at night and brightening city streets eight times.

The country plans to put a giant 24-meter-wide mirror into geosynchronous orbit, because satellites in geosynchronous orbit will remain relatively stationary with their targets on Earth, and in layman's terms, we will see an additional artificial moon in the sky that will remain stationary.

Plans indicate that the function of this artificial moon will be to focus sunlight on the city of Chengdu. If the plan is successful, Chengdu, a city of 14 million people, will have bright nights.

Night lights in the sky

Theoretically, the launch of the artificial moon would help reduce the electricity consumption of Chengdu's streetlights, saving $174 million annually from an economic standpoint. More importantly, the artificial moon would help serve as a backup light source in the event of a natural disaster or another emergency.

But some say the current design of the "artificial moon" cannot meet people's needs because its expected brightness is only about one-fifth of that of a normal streetlight.

So it seems that the artificial moon has many advantages, then why China originally planned to launch the first "artificial moon" in 2020 is nowhere to be found?

The launch was not on time in 2020 mainly because the launch and operation, and maintenance of the artificial moon need to consider many factors, and there are still many problems to overcome in the plan, such as the Sichuan basin being covered by clouds all year round, resulting in the artificial moon can produce the desired effect is still an unknown, so the launch plan will be postponed.

On the contrary, the country plans to launch three artificial moons in the future to ensure that at least one of them is always in the best position to reflect sunlight.

And the luminosity of these artificial moons can still be manually adjusted, and their sunlight-reflecting function can be turned off if needed. It is expected that the brightness of the three satellites will be adjusted to a maximum that together will be able to illuminate 3975 square kilometers.

Disadvantages of artificial moons

The artificial moon, if it appears, will bring us many benefits, but there is no denying that the appearance of the artificial moon may bring some bad effects, so we need to look at the artificial moon rationally and be proactive and analyze the possible shortcomings of ourselves.

First of all, some experts say that the appearance of artificial moons may have a significant impact on local wildlife. For example, the brightness of the moon may affect the behavior of certain species, such as sea turtles that pick full moon days to lay their eggs and coral reefs that accelerate their reproductive activities during the full moon.

Although Chengdu has neither sea turtles nor coral reefs, it is unclear whether the presence of an artificial moon would hurt local wildlife.

Secondly, after hundreds of millions of years of evolution, we have adapted to a world with only one moon, what would be the effect on us if there were three more moons in the sky, and there is not yet an accurate answer to this effect.

Following, the author of the artificial moon on our life of simple speculation, the artificial moon in addition to the destruction of the beauty of the night sky, and light pollution may also disrupt our day and night patterns. The disruption of circadian patterns may lead to poor sleep quality in areas with severe light pollution, making them more prone to obesity, diabetes, and mood disorders.

Technology is a double-edged sword, although the emergence of the artificial moon may have some adverse effects on our life, I believe that these adverse effects can be effectively solved in the future.

Science
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About the Creator

Karen Gillanah

The aggravation that can be told is not aggravation; the lover that can be snatched away is not a lover.

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