The artificial meteor shower plan takes off

[Eldorado]

A Japanese startup wants to light up the sky with streaks of synthetic starlight.

Calling itself a “space entertainment” company, the Tokyo-based Astro Live Experiences, or ALE, has spent the last seven years perfecting the satellite technology of the man-made show.

“Sky Canvas, the world’s first artificial shooting star project, aims to bring people all over the world together to witness an unprecedented, collective experience,” ALE’s website states. “Using space as our stage, we will constantly strive to bring to life new levels of entertainment.”

And on Thursday, the Epsilon-4 rocket — a project that allows students and businesses to try out experiments in space — launched from the JAXA Uchinoura Space Center in Japan to test ALE’s small-scale version of the project.

Full report: https://nypost.com/2019/01/17/japanese-start-up-testing-out-artificial-meteor-showers/

Her ambition is certainly great. The idea is to load each satellite with 400 pellets, each one 2cm (less than an inch) in diameter. A few of them would be released at a time to allow for a meteor shower three to 10 seconds long. A full show could last several minutes, says Okajima.

One of ALE’s promotional videos shows spherical pellets fired from the back of an orbiting satellite. They whizz down through Earth’s atmosphere and as they are heated they begin to glow, creating fabulous meteor effects over cities and – why not – Mount Fuji.

It’s the same thing that happens to natural meteors, tiny grains of space dust or small rocks that meet the Earth’s path as our planet orbits the Sun. Some of the dust burns up in the atmosphere, causing meteor showers.

Full article at the BBC: http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20190102-the-plan-to-make-artificial-meteor-showers

Astro Live: http://star-ale.com/en/

[skrubby]

All right better start saving to move to japan.

[Waspie_Dwarf]

57 minutes ago, skrubby said:

All right better start saving to move to japan.

No need to move to Japan.

The beauty of a satellite in low Earth orbit is that is goes around the world in around 90 minutes. Place the satellite in a high enough inclination orbit and it will fly over the whole of the planet.

This is an experiment for a proposed commercial service, if you are rich enough you will be able to buy an artificial meteor shower, There is no need to go to Japan, the Japanese will send it to you.

[+Not A Rockstar]

yay, soon we will have the night sky being spammed with ads for Verizon  

 

[Waspie_Dwarf]

10 minutes ago, Not A Rockstar said:

yay, soon we will have the night sky being spammed with ads for Verizon  

 

Ain't that the truth.

This artificial meteor idea isn't too bad in the great scheme of things, but there is a Russia company that wants to place billboards in orbit. That would be, in my opinion, an act of global vandalism akin to placing advertising hoardings on the pyramids or the Taj Mahal. It would also be highly damaging to Earth based astronomy.

Here is an article on this idea: https://www.newsweek.com/space-billboard-russian-start-startrocket-orbital-display-advertising-1295422

[skrubby]

1 hour ago, Not A Rockstar said:

yay, soon we will have the night sky being spammed with ads for Verizon  

 

Crap this is how humanity shall truly end we will all gain the cancer that kills humanity

verizoncer

[+and-then]

1 hour ago, Waspie_Dwarf said:

No need to move to Japan.

The beauty of a satellite in low Earth orbit is that is goes around the world in around 90 minutes. Place the satellite in a high enough inclination orbit and it will fly over the whole of the planet.

This is an experiment for a proposed commercial service, if you are rich enough you will be able to buy an artificial meteor shower, There is no need to go to Japan, the Japanese will send it to you.

Imagine being able to have a custom made meteor shower for your kid's birthday party.  I normally don't like the ideas for illuminating the night sky beyond what nature provides but this one seems harmless and might be fun.  The corporate desire to actually put banner ads in orbit, I am dead against and always will be.  That view of the stars, with the exception of light pollution, is one of the things that tie us to every human ever born.  Seeing an ad for beer or cars up there would sicken me.

[AllPossible]

1 hour ago, and then said:

Imagine being able to have a custom made meteor shower for your kid's birthday party.  I normally don't like the ideas for illuminating the night sky beyond what nature provides but this one seems harmless and might be fun.  The corporate desire to actually put banner ads in orbit, I am dead against and always will be.  That view of the stars, with the exception of light pollution, is one of the things that tie us to every human ever born.  Seeing an ad for beer or cars up there would sicken me.

I agree. Too much corporate greed already ruining the planet daily

[look behind you]

This is absolutely ridiculous. What are we doing but destroying the true nature of our world. The idea of a shooting star was to be lucky, see it, and make a wish. And then afterwards tell everyone! But now this and the possible constellation ads? This is absurd and we need to enjoy our mysterious universe not create our own.

[Waspie_Dwarf]

32 minutes ago, look behind you said:

This is absolutely ridiculous. What are we doing but destroying the true nature of our world. The idea of a shooting star was to be lucky, see it, and make a wish. And then afterwards tell everyone! But now this and the possible constellation ads? This is absurd and we need to enjoy our mysterious universe not create our own.

What is absurd about it? What harm is it going to cause?

Artificial shooting stars are nothing new, they are produced every time a piece of space junk re-enters the atmosphere. 

It seems that your argument boils down to one, simple, logical fallacy,  "appeal to nature"... it's not natural so, therefore, it must be bad. We'll I'very got news for you, global communication via the Internet isn't natural but you seem to have embraced that.

[look behind you]

Lol that’s such a dumb argument. It’s not the fact that artificial stars re-enter our atmosphere through space junk it’s that to me it’s mesningless. I mean what’s the point? To your point of billboard satellite constellations its the same idea. You want to disrupt astronomy? So when we have a meteor shower etc we should be confused by Japan’s fake sphere shooting stars? It’s just pointless. Global communication through the net however is NOT POINTLESS.

[Waspie_Dwarf]

On 1/22/2019 at 4:53 PM, look behind you said:

Lol that’s such a dumb argument. It’s not the fact that artificial stars re-enter our atmosphere through space junk it’s that to me it’s mesningless. I mean what’s the point? To your point of billboard satellite constellations its the same idea. You want to disrupt astronomy? So when we have a meteor shower etc we should be confused by Japan’s fake sphere shooting stars? It’s just pointless. Global communication through the net however is NOT POINTLESS.

You protest a lot, but your post makes it quite clear that you haven't got the vaguest clue what it is you are actually protesting about.

You make the totally false claim that this will disrupt astronomy in the same way that the billboard will. It won't. The billboard will circle the Earth every 90 minutes. When it is in the dawn or dusk sky it will be particularly bright and intrusive. This is not the case with the artificial meteors. They will each last just a few seconds, the entire display will be over in a matter of minutes. Further, it will be visible only from a localised area, not globally. It will be timed to occur for a specific event, and so only those that know nothing about astronomy will be able to confuse it for a natural meteor shower (the times of which are also well known).

As for being pointless, I take it that you don't read fiction, listen to music, watch sport or enjoy a firework display. This has exactly the same point as all of those things... entertainment.

Now if you have any accurate and valid objections, instead of ill-informed, inaccurate or out and out false ones, it would be interesting to hear them.

[look behind you]

SMH...in my opinion still not cool. Just have a fire works display. Getting out of hand relax dude. ;)

[Vorg]

Shooting stars Space ads