2023-08-06 08:26:58
At the rate of our greenhouse gas emissions, our climate is changing. Temperatures are rising. And in the hope of bringing them back down a bit, scientists are exploring all avenues. Including some that may seem a bit crazy. This astronomer hopes to be able to plant a giant parasol on an asteroid to curb global warming.
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To fight against climate change, we are going to have to rely on all the technologies at our disposal, we are used to saying. Researchers, in any case, no longer hesitate to study all the options. Including the craziest. The one proposed by István Szapudi, a University of Hawaii astronomer (United States), for example. He aims to capture an asteroidasteroid, plant an umbrella on it and station it between the Earth and the SunSun. To block a part – even weak – of the radiation which arrives on our Planet and thus to bring down the temperatures.
In itself, the idea of the parasol is not new. But it seemed so far rather unrealizable. Because it required designing a massive object to prevent it from being carried away by the solar wind and the pressure from the radiation. And sending a massive object into space is complicated and very expensive.
Attached to an asteroid, the anti-global warming parasol becomes almost conceivable
This is where István Szapudi comes in. Depending on how he conceives it, the parasol and its counterweight, placed at Lagrange’s strategic point called L1 — located between the Earth and the Sun — might not have to weigh more than 3.5 million tons. This is 100 times less than the estimates of previous proposals. And broken down into just 35,000 tons for the parasol and the rest for the asteroid. This makes it possible to start imagining solutions for putting into orbitorbit.
To start imagining. Because we must not lose sight of the fact that the Saturn V launcher only had a payload of a few tens of tons. And even for SpaceX’s Starship it’s not much more. István Szapudi, however, seems confident. According to him, if the engineers get started today, they could design the system before it is too late to protect us from a share of global warming. Keeping in mind that the only way to really (and simply) limit it is to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions.
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