First artificial meteor shower might outshine natural 'shooting stars'
[...] Tokyo-based ALE (for Astro Live Experiences) pitches itself as a pioneer in the "space entertainment sector." It hopes to conduct a groundbreaking artificial meteor event in 2020 using its first satellite over an area near Hiroshima, where it will be observable by up to 6 million people over an area 200 kilometers (124 miles) wide.
[...] "I hope that our man-made meteors will help reveal new discoveries in science, and that it will gather and entertain people under the night sky," CEO Lena Okajima said in a statement.
The satellite creates its sky show by firing off little pellets a centimeter in diameter that are made up of a proprietary mix of non-toxic materials. The "particles," as ALE calls them, are designed to generate a range of bright colors as they heat up and disintegrate during reentry into the atmosphere, all while still over 60 kilometers (37 miles) above our heads.
Related: Now, meteor shower on demand? Here is Japanese firm’s controversial plan for the ultra-rich
Previously: Company Will Create an "Artificial Meteor Shower" Over Hiroshima, Japan in 2019
(Score: 3, Interesting) by richtopia on Friday January 18 2019, @04:50PM
I went to the peace museums in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and I highly recommend visiting them if you can. My understanding is that bombing Hiroshima is understood as a logical course of war. However, Nagasaki was only two days later; this did not give the Japanese a chance to surrender and was actually designed to inflate the USA's atomic capacity in the eyes of the Soviets.