A giant shield capable of blocking some of the sun’s rays is one possible solution for saving the Earth from global warming. To test this concept, scientists plan to launch a demonstration model into space.
A sunshade for the entire planet
The journal Acta Astronautica recently published another article devoted to the idea of creating a space sunshade that would intercept some of the sun’s rays. Its authors are scientists from the Polytechnic University of Turin in Italy.
All of this concerns the issue of climate change on Earth, in particular global warming. This is a complex problem, namely that due to changes in the composition of the atmosphere, some of the heat coming from the sun is not radiated back into space as before but remains on the planet.
There are several answers to the question of what to do, and one of them is simply to reduce the flow of solar heat by mechanically constructing a giant space sunshade that will intercept some of the rays. It is usually represented as a mesh shield deployed at the L1 Lagrange point.
It is the zone between our planet and the sun where their gravitational forces balance out, allowing spacecraft to remain virtually motionless there for long periods of time.
Test model
An important feature of the sunshade project is that at the L1 Lagrange point there is a powerful and stable flow of solar rays, which keep the entire giant structure deployed and correctly oriented.
Nevertheless, researchers believe that an autonomous control system based on artificial intelligence will be necessary for the project to function properly. Because it is simply impossible to control all of this from Earth. And to test the concept, a demonstration model has to be sent into space.
It will consist of a satellite made up of 12 interconnected CubeSats. It will unfold a shield with an area of 144 m2. Next, the entire project will be tested. The organizers will try to make it as inexpensive as possible and launch it into space as an additional payload along with some other mission.
However, the project will still cost $10 million. But even this amount is nothing compared to the implementation of the main plan. It will require the coordination of efforts of all people on Earth.
According to phys.org
