China wants to replace public lighting with a moonlight

The plans can be read in the official journal of the Chinese Ministry of Science and technology. By 2020, the country wants to perform a test with a first artificial moon that is brought into orbit around the Earth at an altitude of about 500 kilometers.

The satellite receives a reflective hull capable of reflecting sunlight at night on a point on the Earth. If all goes well, China hopes to have three more "moons of light" around the earth in 2022.

With reflected light, the city of Chengdu, which has about 16 million inhabitants, could be enough illuminated at night to observe the current situation. replace the street lights.

According to the project leader, Wu Chunfeng, of the Tian Fu New Science Society Chinese research institute, the lighting of the room would be about eight times more powerful than the natural moonlight we know . . It looks like twilight one summer night.

For a terrestrial observer, the lighting system would not look like a classic moon, but rather a very bright star in the sky. The fear that the night light disrupts the biological clock of people, animals and planes, according to Wu Chunfeng, is not in question. According to him, the light is too weak for this and, furthermore, the beam of light can be focused and attenuated according to your wishes,

China also wants to use technology to "light up" at night in disaster areas, which may facilitate relief operations, for example, or to prevent residents from being in the dark because of from a source of electricity.

First country dreaming of a night lamp in the sky. In the 1990s, Russian researchers worked on a similar project called "Znamya", but it was stopped after a few attempts.