This is a headline you by no means thought you’d learn: Japan is about to group up with the U.S. to launch a satellite tv for pc made from wooden, the Guardian studies.
No, it is not a wacky sci-fi plot or a publicity stunt. Wooden may really be the reply to a significant downside with our present satellite tv for pc designs.
Takao Doi, a Japanese astronaut and aerospace engineer at Kyoto College, defined the problem to the BBC in 2020. “We’re very involved with the truth that all of the satellites which re-enter the Earth’s environment burn and create tiny alumina particles which can float within the higher environment for a few years,” he stated. “Ultimately it’ll have an effect on the surroundings of the Earth.”
Aluminum damages the ozone layer, the Guardian explains.
The air pollution may not be a significant downside if we have been speaking about one or two satellites; however as an increasing number of of our communication and know-how has begun to depend on these units, their numbers have ballooned. As of February 2024, Orbiting Now lists 9,413 artifical objects circling Earth, 13 of that are actively within the technique of falling.
That is lots of air pollution, and researchers at Kyoto College hope they’ve discovered a method to keep away from extra, the Guardian reveals: with wood satellites that dissipate on re-entry.
Working with logging firm Sumitomo Forestry, they despatched wooden samples from a number of varieties of bushes to the Worldwide Area Station. Lab checks on Earth and a 12 months of testing in area confirmed that magnolia wooden was probably the most immune to splitting, so that is what they used to construct the LignoSat probe — however all the wooden carried out surprisingly effectively.
“Wooden’s means to face up to these situations astounded us,” Koji Murata, head of the mission, informed the Guardian. He additional defined that there aren’t any dwelling organisms in area to rot the wooden, and the dearth of oxygen means it may’t burn.
The LignoSat probe is barely in regards to the dimension of a espresso cup, but when it performs effectively on its six-month mission beginning this summer time, extra wooden satellites might comply with.
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