The Perseids, also known as 'Tears of Saint Lawrence'
Remember When you were young and you spent the day asking –and ending the patience of all those around you–?: "Why is the sky blue? Why does it rain? Why doesn't the moon fall? Why does the rainbow come out? Why...?"
Not only children, we human beings are curious by nature and the immensity of the firmament has fascinated us since time immemorial.
We have been so self-centered that we believed Ptolemy when he said that the earth was the center of the universe and everything revolved around us. And so dreamers, that we ask wishes to the Shooting Stars and we get excited about the sunsets, as if we did not know that tomorrow it will also hide on the horizon again.
But we are also very nonconformist: why wait until August to see the Perseids or until December for the Geminids when we can create our own meteor shower? That's what the team thought ALE Co. Ltd, a Japanese start-up that will make the first artificial meteor shower in 2020.
Shooting stars in Qinghai province on the Tibentan Plateau, western China
MARCHING A SHOWER OF STARS!
Lena Okajima, CEO of the company, she got the idea to create an artificial meteor shower when she was watching the Leonid meteor shower in 2001.
“I thought that if natural shooting stars are produced when dust particles several millimeters enter the Earth's atmosphere and burn due to plasma emission, they could also be created artificially. This is how the project was born Sky Canvas ”, tells Lena to Traveler.es
Hiroki Kajihara, of the ALE team explains the process: “we launched a microsatellite containing shooting star particles into outer space. Once it stabilizes in orbit around our planet, we release these particles, which travel approximately a third of the way around the Earth.
And he continues: “These particles burn up as they enter the atmosphere, becoming shooting stars. visible from an area 200 km in diameter.
Meteor shower over Mount Jampayang (China)
ALE: A SPACE ENTERTAINMENT STAR-UP
ALE was founded in September 2011 by Lena Okajima, a serial entrepreneur with a doctorate in astronomy from the University of Tokyo. And we say serial entrepreneur because she had previously created two mobile game and consulting companies.
"While running the mobile game company I was selected as a member of the open lab of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA)” , she tells us.
ALE's mission is contribute to scientific research through entertainment: “Some examples of expected use of our service will be festivals, music shows, sports, city promotion and theme parks who want to highlight events with our shooting stars,” says Hiroki.
As for research, ALE currently collaborates with several universities in the aerospace and mechanical engineering departments: Tohoku University and Tokyo Metropolitan University, Kanagawa Institute of Technology and Nihon University.
The Japanese start-up ALE intends to launch the first artificial meteor shower in 2020
IN THE NOTHING FAR FUTURE
Sky Canvas ’ is one of the projects being considered for the opening ceremony of the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, which would constitute the first opportunity in the world to enjoy the shower of artificial shooting stars.
Are we facing the fireworks of the future?
Sky Canvas Project Outline