The Idea of a Sun Visor

Mitigating the effects of climate change on Earth is such a big challenge that scientists are seriously considering all possible options.

Astronomer Estefan Zabodi of the Institute of Astronomy at the University of Hawaii thinks we can grab an asteroid, place it near Earth, and attach an umbrella to it to block out some of the sunlight.

Zapbody modifications can significantly reduce the cost and complexity of implementation, bringing them one step closer to implementation.

“In Hawaii, a lot of people use an umbrella to block out the sun while walking during the day,” he explains. “I thought: can we do the same for the Earth and thus mitigate the impending catastrophe of climate change?”

The Challenges

The idea of ​​a sun visor is not without merit. If you block only a small percentage of the sunlight that is constantly being beamed to Earth, that might be enough to counteract the rise in temperature. This is probably not an absolute solution, but it is a temporary solution that should give us some time to sort things out here on the surface.

The problem is that a sail would need a fair amount of mass to keep it from being blown apart by the solar wind and radiation pressure, and to stabilize gravity—and getting that kind of mass into space would be difficult and expensive.

However, what if the cluster already exists? This is where capturing an asteroid and attaching a parachute to it comes in handy.

Chabody reasoned that placing the solar stabilizer in the L1 Lagrangian would reduce the total mass of the shield and counterweight to only 3.5 million tons.

The L1 Lagrangian is the point of relativistic gravitational stability resulting from the interaction between the Earth and the Sun. The gravitational forces of both objects balance out at these Lagrangian points to reduce the amount of adjustment needed to stay in that location.

The Potential Solution

Each two-body system contains five Lagrangians. L1 is located right between the Earth and the Sun and is the perfect place to park a solar shield.

3.5 million tons may seem like a lot, but it’s about 100 times less than previous free shield estimates. And only 1% of this will be real armor, about 35,000 tons. The remaining mass will be for the asteroid.

The weight of the screen could be further reduced by using lighter materials such as graphene. And this will still be very difficult to achieve - the current payload of missiles does not approach 35,000 tons.

And NASA has shown that we can redirect an asteroid. There is a lot of work to be done, but Sabody believes that if we start research and development now, we can do it before it’s too late for the climate. There are other potential benefits as well.

While it has been estimated that blocking 1 to 2 percent of the sun’s rays would be enough to cool the planet, Szabodie argues that “a more cautious approach would use historical data.”

So zabuddy’s idea would be scalable, reducing the light to 0.24%, and down to about 1.7%. It must also be easily reversible.

Study published in Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences.

Source: Science Alert