Want to witness an artificial meteor shower? Make Japan your destination for 2019

By Devanshi Saxena

A meteor shower is indeed a surreal celestial event to witness and now, a Japanese startup is planning to launch a radical scheme with the world’s first man-made meteor shower. As the aerospace industry is witnessing a great surge after the entry of private players, fake meteor showers are the new buzz in this relatively fledgeling field. Astro Live Experiences (ALE), which claims to be an “aerospace entertainment” company,  is developing a strategy to completely transform the arena of a firework display, by introducing the concept of an artificial meteor shower that lights up the sky of a particular place at a particular time. The company intends to create a fake meteor shower over the skies of Hiroshima in 2019. Brilliant as it may seem, the “Sky Canvas” idea has its set of critics who believe that the blazing splinters might interfere with the orbital path of the satellites.

Background of ALE 

Lena Okajima, an astronomer of the University of Tokyo, first drafted the plan on aerospace entertainment which laid the foundations of the Astro Live Experiences (ALE). At the outset of this technology, it was decided to first introduce it in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics in place of the conventional fireworks display; however, the group of scientists working on it resolved to explore the other prospects of this technology and turn it into a form of commercial entertainment. ALE’s field of work is aerospace entertainment while other private projects like SpaceX and Blue Origin work in the field of space tourism.

How will these artificial shooting stars work?

ALE is making preparations to launch two microsatellites that will hurl 15-20 half-inch metallic pebbles which will blaze up in the night sky resembling a meteor streak. Carrying 300 to 400 meteor particles, each microsatellite weighs around 68 kg and costs $3-million. The microsatellites will be launched below an altitude of 220 miles with the propellant quantity fixed to facilitate 27 months of operation in orbit. The microsatellites will be so stationed that when the fuel is exhausted, they will burn up in the Earth’s atmosphere about 30 miles beneath the International Space Station to avoid any risk of satellite collisions. The main aim is to set up six such satellites which will enable the effective functioning of the artificial meteor showers emitting vibrant blue, orange, and green light almost anywhere on the Earth at all times.

The counter-narrative emerging in response to ALS’s venture

According to Patrick Seitzer, an astronomer at the University of Michigan, ALS’s vision and technical expertise is commendable, but the project is not feasible considering the issue of orbital debris. Near-earth orbits in the space are getting more crowded, and this traffic is bound to increase manifold in the upcoming decade. Currently, around 40 official satellites are operating 220 miles above the Earth in the low orbit zone. Meanwhile, certain unregistered spy satellites are also travelling in this zone. With the ambitious plans of SpaceX to launch 7,500 new broadband internet satellites in the orbits, the sparse space in the orbits is ordained to become overcrowded.

ALS’s response to the counter-narratives

As per ALS’s claims, it has cleared all the safety regulations in accordance with the US Strategic Command’s satellite trajectory catalogue. After running the experimental simulations, it has been successfully concluded that there is no risk of collision associated with artificial meteor showers. Moreover, the meteor particles will last only for a few seconds before falling to 37 miles above Earth, which is very low for the low-Earth-orbit satellites and very high considering the experimental balloons.

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency has given its nod for the first ALE launch and the world will soon witness the making of history with the first artificial meteor shower in 2019.