Giant sun "Umbrella" tied to asteroid could aid in fight against global warming: Scientist
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Scientists have come up with a novel plan to shelter Earth from the sun using a spaceborne "umbrella" in order to lessen the impacts of global warming. To lessen the amount of sunlight striking Earth, astronomer Istvan Szapudi of the University of Hawaii Institute for Astronomy developed the solar shield idea.
"In Hawai'i, many use an umbrella to block the sunlight as they walk about during the day," Mr Szapudi said in a statement. "I was thinking, could we do the same for Earth and thereby mitigate the impending catastrophe of climate change?" he added, NDTV reported.
Mr Szapudi acknowledged in his research, which was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) journal, that the concept of a space-based solar radiation management (SRM) screen or shade has been offered before. But he clarified that the idea to attach a massive shield to a captured asteroid as a counterweight is what distinguishes his original strategy.
"Szapudi's creative solution consists of two innovations: a tethered counterweight instead of just a massive shield, resulting in making the total mass more than 100 times less, and the use of a captured asteroid as the counterweight to avoid launching most of the mass from Earth," a press note read.
In order to avoid a catastrophic spike in world temperatures, Mr Szapudi set out to reduce solar radiation by 1.7%. According to the press release, the scientist discovered that tilting a tethered counterbalance towards the sun might reduce the weight of the shield and counterweight to roughly 3.5 million tonnes, which is considerably less than earlier predictions for an untethered shield.
"While this number is still far beyond current launch capabilities, only 1% of the weight-about 35,000 tons would be the shield itself, and that is the only part that needs to be launched from Earth," the press release read.
In other words, Mr Szapudi's plan is to launch the counterweight, which will be attached to the solar shield by a strong graphene tether, and then slowly open once in space, allowing it to gradually fill with lunar dust or asteroid material.
The scientist thinks that compared to existing shield designs, a tethered structure would be simpler, quicker, and less expensive to deploy. However, this particular SRM strategy has a significant obstacle because some of the biggest rockets can only send roughly 50 tonnes to low Earth orbit. The press release stated that it is also essential to construct a lightweight yet durable graphene tether linking the shield with the counterweight.
