Scientists think that by shooting moon dust into space, we are able to end climate change.
Inventors have developed all kinds of insane ways for coping with climate change, from constructing a floating solar farm to feeding seaweed to cows.
However this may be the strangest one to date.
If scientists at the University of Utah put millions of tonnes of moon dust into the atmosphere each year, they claim, it might considerably lessen climate change.
“It is incredible to think about just how moon dust – that took more than 4 billion years to produce – may help impede the increase in Earth’s temperature, an issue which has taken us under 300 years to produce,” said Scott Kenyon, co-author of the research.
How would firing moon dust into space stop global warming?
Scientists have discovered that launching lunar dust in space might shade the planet.
Because of its light weight, the “high porosity, fluffy” moon dust might be simpler to launch than planet dust.
Influenced by the rings surrounding certain planets, like Saturn, the researchers claim.
The rings of Saturn happen to be made of astronomical dust, and are apparent to us as they reflect light returned from the sun.
“That had been the seed of the idea; “if we put a little quantity of material on a special orbit in between the sun and the Earth and split it up, we might obstruct a great deal of sunshine with a small amount of mass,” said Ben Bromley, a professor of astronomy and physics at Cambridge University.
If we could construct an infrastructure on the moon, the procedure would be much quicker.
“Once moon-based launch facilities are established, large amounts of dust may be uploaded rapidly and continuously,” the report states.
How can we fight climate change?
The plan might sound like something from a science fiction novel, but don’t get pumped up. You will find significant logistical difficulties with this strategy.
Whenever the dust particles may obstruct about 1-2 percent of the sun’s rays, it might have a significant impact on global warming.
This would require a launch of approximately ten billion kg of dust each year – around 700 times more mass compared to people have ever launched into space.
In order to fight climate change, we do not need to send dust into space. Virtually all we are able to do is stop burning fossil fuels as well as digging up new ones.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimations that there’re 380 billion tonnes of CO2 remaining in the global carbon budget, based on the most recent estimates.
This means that we can release 50 per cent of CO2 while still having a fifty per cent chance of avoiding 1.5 degrees of warming.
By 2022, world’s greenhouse gas emissions surpassed 58 billion tonnes.
Read more: University of Utah, PLOS Climate
