Those of you who have seen the latest James Bond film will know exactly the sort of thing I'm referring to here, albeit a less far fetched version of it.

A very large reflective surface deployed in orbit around the earth, could in theory, be used to reflect the sun's light down onto the surface of the earth at night. I don't really know how plausible such a device would be, but it does sound possible.

But would it really be feasable to build such a complicated system simply to light up an area at night ? I'm convinced that I've read about plans for building something like this in the past, but nothing like it has ever surfaced. It would certainly be the brightest object in the night sky, thats for sure.

I have never seen any James Bond films, so this is new to me. I don't understand what the purpose could be, because the dark side of the earth will soon be the light side. Besides, what would such an object do to the nocturnal animals?

In a way I guess this could go to benefit cleaner energy technology by reflectin the sunlight onto a solar farm in the middle of the night. Thus allowing for 24 hours of electricity making.

I think that this project requires an awful lot more thought before going ahead. Our world is designed to have both night and day. Our ecosystems require it. Our animals depend upon it. I personally love the night, and could not tolerate 24 hours a day of sunshine.
The scientists have done some great work, but let this one go, unless it's for the purpose of farming in space as it were.

Leave our night alone.

Well if anyone has been watching Most Haunted sprits prefer the dark so if this sort of project goes through there will be a lot of unhappy little ghosties out there

If they could direct the light in a straigt beam toward solar panels that needed recharging that would be great.
However the human body requires total darkness at night to regenerate. One of the theory's put forth about the increase in cancer rates is the fact that most of us now live in areas where there are street lights that prevent proper regeneration of our cellular structure.
I like the Dark.

If you directed a solar beam at one spot on the planet wouldn't that have the effect of a magnifying glass and burn?
Or would it be like shining a torch?

Halo,

It would probably depend on how focused the beam of sunlight was.

In reality, I think there would be a huge problem trying to focus the reflected sunlight enough to do much good at all. Trying to focus it on a city or another specific point on the earth's surface would be quite difficult, as unlike a Laser, reflected sunlight would spread out too much over such a long distance. There are probably ways to overcome this problem, but I doubt we'd ever see the sort of highly-focused beam of scorching sunlight used as a weapon in "Die Another Day".

/cheer Loonboy.

leave nature alone you freaks

if it were to work properly then there would have to be absolutely NO flaws in the mirror, and it would have to be perfectly flat as well.

If there was aproblem such as this then it would focus the light too much and burn everything to a crisp.