From Streetlights to Artificial Moonlight

Lighting up the streets at night helps human beings stay out in the dark and do more. From the basic gas lights in London city, we have come a long way with China hoping to launch an artificial moon to light up it’s cities. The project is rather ambitious and has been undertaken by the Tian Fu New Area Science Society.

They plan to launch a satellite in 2020 which helps to illuminate about a football ground worth of area on the planet. This artificial moon will be launched from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center, and will orbit about 300 miles above the city. The satellite will use its mirror-like coating to reflect sunlight down to the Chinese cities.

It is brave of the Chinese to take on this project, considering that the Russians tried doing something similar in the 1990’s but failed. There are many pit falls to this ambitious moonlighting plan, but the potential success would be worth the worries.

Three more mini moons will join the first by 2022 if all goes as planned,
eliminating the need for street lights which can be quite costly as the projected 1.2 billion yuan cost currently needed for lighting will be eliminated. Now this is one science project that city developers worldwide would be paying attention to.