This Chinese City has decided it needs its own Moon.
The Chinese City Chengdu plans to launch its own moon (read: illumination satellite) in 2020. The satellite will emulate moonlight and will be 8x brighter than the actual moon!
The news of making the artificial moon was given out by Wu Chunfeng, chairman of Chengdu Aerospace Science and Technology Microelectronics System Research Institute, at an innovation event this month.
The satellite will eliminate the need for Streetlights
The whole purpose of doing so would be to eliminate street lights as the moon will be able to light up an area with a diameter of 1okm to a diameter of 80km. However, no details regarding the technology used for illuminating the ‘moon’ were revealed by the Chairman.
According to Wu, the technology which had been tested the first time a few years ago is now mature enough for expected deployment of the illuminating satellite in 2020.