How hard would it be to shade the entire Earth with a blanket positioned near the sun? Here on Earth sunlight is essentially parallel, but at some point closer to the sun we could perhaps pull this angular "hack" to shade Earth using a smaller object? Is it feasible or just a a daydream of mine?
> at some point closer to the sun we could perhaps pull this angular "hack" to shade Earth using a smaller object?
A. C. Clarke and S. Baxter A Time Odyssey series 2nd book, "Sunstorm" focuses on destructive coronal mass ejection as main plot. One of the mankind solutions is a megaproject of shield modelled on Fresnel lens that is constructed on the Moon from regolith and shot up from electromagnetic slingshot in parts, which are then "mounted up" along with AI controlled mechanism in Lagrange point 1 in order to protect the planet.
It's of course a sci-fi portrayal of idea you mention and in this book humanity has a serious reason to build up this shield. As for reality, I can't tell if such structure build with current technology (a solar sail material most likely) would do anything - we doesn't seem to be bothered with global warming enough in first place.
I think that putting some sort of mid-sized blockage at the lagrange point, as posited in the article, would result in not a shadow, but an overall decrease in intensity (because of refraction, and similar to the measurable but slight decrease in brightness whenever an asteroid passed in front of the Sun).
This would allow us to modulate exactly how many watts of sunlight hit us.
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[ 4.1 ms ] story [ 23.2 ms ] threadA. C. Clarke and S. Baxter A Time Odyssey series 2nd book, "Sunstorm" focuses on destructive coronal mass ejection as main plot. One of the mankind solutions is a megaproject of shield modelled on Fresnel lens that is constructed on the Moon from regolith and shot up from electromagnetic slingshot in parts, which are then "mounted up" along with AI controlled mechanism in Lagrange point 1 in order to protect the planet.
It's of course a sci-fi portrayal of idea you mention and in this book humanity has a serious reason to build up this shield. As for reality, I can't tell if such structure build with current technology (a solar sail material most likely) would do anything - we doesn't seem to be bothered with global warming enough in first place.
This would allow us to modulate exactly how many watts of sunlight hit us.