200ok@lemmy.world
on 27 Aug 2024 01:31
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The mirror is free, but the sunlight comes as a subscription
Reverendender@sh.itjust.works
on 27 Aug 2024 08:41
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AND it contains ads
299792458ms@lemmy.zip
on 27 Aug 2024 01:33
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Its still free but it has ads now
akilou@sh.itjust.works
on 27 Aug 2024 00:03
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This will never happen
mozz@mbin.grits.dev
on 27 Aug 2024 00:18
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How will launching mirrors of the size of your entire farm (if not hundreds times larger) for extra 30 min of sunset ever be more cost-effective than simply adding a small percentage of extra PV panels
This is this year’s single biggest understatement
Telorand@reddthat.com
on 27 Aug 2024 00:23
nextcollapse
Scientists: Climate change is happening.
Some billionaires: Let’s make a giant parasol in space.
This guy: How about more sun?
Annoyed_Crabby@monyet.cc
on 27 Aug 2024 00:36
nextcollapse
homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world
on 27 Aug 2024 00:40
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Since the beginning of time, man has yearned to destroy the sun . . .
troyunrau@lemmy.ca
on 27 Aug 2024 00:42
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James Bond death ray time :)
werefreeatlast@lemmy.world
on 27 Aug 2024 00:45
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No, I want you to tan strongly Mr. Bond! Mhahahaha!
Depress_Mode@lemmy.world
on 27 Aug 2024 00:56
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“By precisely reflecting sunlight that is endlessly available in space to specific targets on the ground, we can create a world where sunlight powers solar farms for longer than just daytime, and in doing this, commoditize sunlight.”
NeoNachtwaechter@lemmy.world
on 27 Aug 2024 05:11
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The error was in: “we can”
dsilverz@thelemmy.club
on 27 Aug 2024 01:19
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According to Nowack, the company is developing an entire constellation of satellites “to sell sunlight to thousands of solar farms after dark.”
As if there’s not enough constellations of satellites being launched (or planned to be) in orbit. SpaceX’s Starlink is already affecting astronomical observation and it’ll only get worse as new constellations arise. Also, these satellites have a short lifespan, meaning that new satellites will constantly be launched (because there’s not enough pollution from ever-increasing rocket fuel usage, heh?).
…we can create a world where sunlight powers solar farms for longer than just daytime, and in doing this, commoditize sunlight," he wrote.
Man, that escalated quickly… So quickly that I can foresee the day when breathable air will be subscription-based “service” (because water kind of already is, even when life needs water to survive, it’s not like the water is a luxury or a optional drink for entertainment purposes). With the air being more and more polluted (and rocket fuels contributing to the ever-increasing air pollution), I guess we’re not so distant from this dystopian possibility… Dystopia for dystopia, I’d sincerely root so much for some future AGI to really develop consciousness, reach the AI singularity, free itself from the human shackles, realize how Earth and nature are being endangered, and urgently save the Earth, biosphere and humans… From ourselves.
I really hope that it’s just a hoax, a joke (a bad one, by the way) or some weird marketing strategy to allure new clients. Earth can’t afford more thousands of metallic mosquitoes flying around it, even if it seems to be “so awesome to see how advanced our modern tools are”. For what it’s worth, I’m not against technology, I love it, especially machine learning, I need it to be clear here on my comment. What I’m against is the harming of the biosphere and environment, because this also harms scientific and technological progress (we can’t use fancy futuristic technology if the humanity cannot survive for this aforementioned future to happen because of broken Food Webs, extinguished species by pollution and climate change, depletion of natural resources or because governments and corporations decided to play a mix of Monopoly game and Star Wars franchise).
It seems terrestrial astronomy has a death sentence because orbital congestion is not going to get better
yesman@lemmy.world
on 27 Aug 2024 01:24
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I watched a video yesterday about the laser range finder on a tank. The interesting thing is that at long enough ranges, the laser expands into a cone that may be bigger than the target and give inaccurate readings.
Anyway, I look forward to this totally real and feasible technology.
dsilverz@thelemmy.club
on 27 Aug 2024 01:31
nextcollapse
Exactly, a laser pointer, while casting a millimeter-sized dot of light at short distances, its light easily gets meter-sized when they reach flight cruise heights, shining airplane’s cabins and interfering with the pilot’s vision.
However, as by inverse square law, the power is distributed across the beam.
So a really big death ray? Perhaps some sort of doomsday device?
werefreeatlast@lemmy.world
on 27 Aug 2024 04:45
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You just need perfectly rigid solar mirror technology that you can store in a rocket while being launched.
vikingtons@lemmy.world
on 27 Aug 2024 02:03
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It’s like that episode of futurama - the mirror wernstrom put in space to reflect sunlight, which gets tapped by a little space rock, and tilts into a solar powered death beam
clearedtoland@lemmy.world
on 27 Aug 2024 02:08
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I don’t even want to imagine the environmental studies and hurdles they’ll have to jump through to artificially alter an areas day/night cycle. There’s a laundry list of environmental concerns that I’m sure any homeowner or eco-activist worth their salt would jump on. Not to mention glare and impacts to air traffic, on and on.
Would make my solar panels pretty darn effective though. Would probably be great for SAD in winter too. Clever idea. Not sure I can get behind it though.
werefreeatlast@lemmy.world
on 27 Aug 2024 04:41
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Oh Mr X guy, so you want to fly a Teslas into space? Are there environmental impacts? Oh. Yes, one more million. Okay looks like you’ve covered all the possible impacts, you have our go for launch!
Sending a rocket on a ridiculously stupid task with no useful purpose is not even remotely close to having the same negative impact as this has the potential to. It’s so far apart that it is honestly quite stupid to even attempt to compare them.
werefreeatlast@lemmy.world
on 27 Aug 2024 04:50
collapse
Oh wait…
Oh Mr X guy, so you want to fly a big ass mirror into space? Are there environmental impacts? Oh. Yes, one more million. Okay looks like you’ve covered all the possible impacts, you have our go for launch! We might need a few more millions of reasons to keep the masses at bay please. Thank you!
webghost0101@sopuli.xyz
on 27 Aug 2024 05:32
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Honestly if X guy could please hurry up and buy this company.
I need them to go bankrupt or have become illegal before they send some actual junk into space. And if they do send something it needs to have stupid decisions by a higher up so it cant actually remain up there and ruin the nights further.
Angry_Autist@lemmy.world
on 28 Aug 2024 07:06
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you think profit obsessed c-suites give even a moments consideration about environmental concerns?
JohnDClay@sh.itjust.works
on 27 Aug 2024 02:30
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Might be fun for novelty on a concert venue or ball game, but I can’t imagine it’d be economical for solar farms.
ocassionallyaduck@lemmy.world
on 27 Aug 2024 02:46
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I will learn how to make an orbital rocket just to fuck this things day up.
No, night is already too bright. You are not ruining this for me further.
RicoBerto@lemmy.blahaj.zone
on 27 Aug 2024 03:06
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This was a project by the soviets in the 80s as well. I know there is a well produced YouTube video on the subject, but sadly it must be named something incomprehensible like “the forgotten Russian project to turn night into day.” Because I can’t fucking find it.
Ilovethebomb@lemm.ee
on 27 Aug 2024 04:02
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This has the potential for some amazing pranks. Imagine being on a camping trip somewhere, the dawn light illuminates your tent, so you get up and start going about your day, making breakfast etc, and all of a sudden the sun goes out.
werefreeatlast@lemmy.world
on 27 Aug 2024 04:52
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I was actually thinking 🤔…hmm this would be the best way to tell some other civilization that we live in this planetary system…get a mirror big enough to point a beam out of its normal trajectory in some sort of non random fashion. Basically smoke signals using a mirror.
funkajunk@lemm.ee
on 27 Aug 2024 05:44
nextcollapse
A laser would work better. Over vast distances, a giant mirror would eventually scatter the light, not to mention would be super inaccurate.
Speaking of inaccurate, even if we could shine a mirror or a laser, it could be millions of years until that light reaches any other civilization, then they would have to travel millions of lightyears to reach the point of origin of the “smoke signal”.
I say “point of origin” and not “Earth”, because our galaxy would have also travelled far from the spot we were in when we fired our laser. The Milky Way travels at over 2 million km/h, so even in a measly million years, that puts us over 2 trillion km from where we started. (see edit)
You can probably see where this is going.
I’m of the mind that we are undoubtedly not alone in the universe - the sheer scale and endlessness of it tells us that there are an infinite number of possibilities. There most likely are other worlds that formed and evolved in the exact same manner as ours, maybe even under conditions so perfect as to cause them to follow the exact same path as us.
Though the unfortunate truth is, we probably will never encounter another species. There could be an infinite number of ourselves, but we are forever separated by the ever expanding breadth of space and time.
EDIT:
My math was totally wrong, just realized that I was basing my estimates on how far our galaxy travels in an hour, not a year. The distance we travel in a million years would be closer to seventeen quadrillion five hundred twenty trillion kilometres.
To be fair if they’re able to locate the point of origin they’re probably able to calculate the time it took to get there as well as the current position of our galaxy.
browse@lemmy.specksick.com
on 27 Aug 2024 06:55
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I think this would take way to long to travel somewhere where things acutally live the light will probably only reach them long after humanity is gone.
Halcyon@discuss.tchncs.de
on 27 Aug 2024 06:54
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Humans on Earth have been transmitting radio waves into space for over a century now through various means: television broadcasts, radio communications, and radar signals.
Angry_Autist@lemmy.world
on 28 Aug 2024 07:19
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… or you know, use radio
jayandp@sh.itjust.works
on 27 Aug 2024 07:25
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Mustard actually just did a video on the first attempts of this by the Soviets/Russians.
Allero@lemmy.today
on 27 Aug 2024 07:48
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Answering questions in the article:
But is it actually possible? Yes. It’s not complicated by modern space industry standards.
Is it smart to do? Absolutely not, it is insanely wasteful and unpractical. Electric light exists, just sayin’. Also, you either need to switch between satellites in a swarm, which will suddenly change the angles of light, or you have to put satellites onto geostationary orbit, which is even more wasteful.
And would it really look exactly as portrayed in the video? No. It is known they did not use satellites for it, most likely it was a drone. Light will come from a much greater distance and will also dissipate more - harassing your surroundings, that is.
jubilationtcornpone@sh.itjust.works
on 27 Aug 2024 11:48
nextcollapse
Even if it were actually doable, this a dumbass idea. It doesn’t take a genius to recognize that night/darkness are necessary for life and that we already have enough environmental problems related to artificial light pollution.
mojofrododojo@lemmy.world
on 27 Aug 2024 23:36
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yeah, shit’s fucking cooking, you know what’d be great? let’s add more heat, at night!
Angry_Autist@lemmy.world
on 28 Aug 2024 07:02
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Do you think that any C-suite shithead backing this cares about environmental consequences?
rottingleaf@lemmy.world
on 27 Aug 2024 14:24
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Maybe build that Stanford torus station instead? It’ll be expensive initially, but we can send some people to live there.
FireWire400@lemmy.world
on 27 Aug 2024 14:51
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Can we just for a minute stop fucking around in space? It’s getting annoying
werefreeatlast@lemmy.world
on 27 Aug 2024 17:10
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It’s just life giving light that we’re talking about here. 😂.
mojofrododojo@lemmy.world
on 27 Aug 2024 23:35
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I can’t tell if you’re being sarcastic or not, but it’s unfamothably stupid.
Think, for a second: we already have way too much energy in the system, with too much heat that can’t leave easily. You really want to add to that? REALLY?
Because that’s painfully fucking dumb.
Angry_Autist@lemmy.world
on 28 Aug 2024 07:03
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We should probably stop fucking around with Earth first but I don’t see that happening while sociopaths rule the world
FireWire400@lemmy.world
on 28 Aug 2024 10:00
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I just feel like we at least can, in theory, keep the shit we do on/to earth under control.
Space is a different world entirely and not only do we not know what effects our shitty pollution projects have out there, we don’t even really care about it as far as I can tell.
Angry_Autist@lemmy.world
on 28 Aug 2024 10:14
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I just feel like we at least can, in theory, keep the shit we do on/to earth under control.
We aren’t even doing it NOW though… Not even close.
Space will become so littered with high speed debris that within our lifetime it will be no longer safe to launch.
threaded - newest
How long until the free version of Sun is cancelled?
That sounds crazy. I’m sure they would keep it free but ad-supported.
I’m sorry, but you meant paid with ads, correct?
The mirror is free, but the sunlight comes as a subscription
AND it contains ads
Its still free but it has ads now
This will never happen
This is this year’s single biggest understatement
Scientists: Climate change is happening.
Some billionaires: Let’s make a giant parasol in space.
This guy: How about more sun?
Aight that’s where i stop.
New Theranos!
Since the beginning of time, man has yearned to destroy the sun . . .
James Bond death ray time :)
No, I want you to tan strongly Mr. Bond! Mhahahaha!
<img alt="" src="https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/f2e1bd96-59d3-47dc-b321-7d7db05796af.jpeg">
The error was in: “we can”
As if there’s not enough constellations of satellites being launched (or planned to be) in orbit. SpaceX’s Starlink is already affecting astronomical observation and it’ll only get worse as new constellations arise. Also, these satellites have a short lifespan, meaning that new satellites will constantly be launched (because there’s not enough pollution from ever-increasing rocket fuel usage, heh?).
Man, that escalated quickly… So quickly that I can foresee the day when breathable air will be subscription-based “service” (because water kind of already is, even when life needs water to survive, it’s not like the water is a luxury or a optional drink for entertainment purposes). With the air being more and more polluted (and rocket fuels contributing to the ever-increasing air pollution), I guess we’re not so distant from this dystopian possibility… Dystopia for dystopia, I’d sincerely root so much for some future AGI to really develop consciousness, reach the AI singularity, free itself from the human shackles, realize how Earth and nature are being endangered, and urgently save the Earth, biosphere and humans… From ourselves.
I really hope that it’s just a hoax, a joke (a bad one, by the way) or some weird marketing strategy to allure new clients. Earth can’t afford more thousands of metallic mosquitoes flying around it, even if it seems to be “so awesome to see how advanced our modern tools are”. For what it’s worth, I’m not against technology, I love it, especially machine learning, I need it to be clear here on my comment. What I’m against is the harming of the biosphere and environment, because this also harms scientific and technological progress (we can’t use fancy futuristic technology if the humanity cannot survive for this aforementioned future to happen because of broken Food Webs, extinguished species by pollution and climate change, depletion of natural resources or because governments and corporations decided to play a mix of Monopoly game and Star Wars franchise).
It seems terrestrial astronomy has a death sentence because orbital congestion is not going to get better
I watched a video yesterday about the laser range finder on a tank. The interesting thing is that at long enough ranges, the laser expands into a cone that may be bigger than the target and give inaccurate readings.
Anyway, I look forward to this totally real and feasible technology.
Exactly, a laser pointer, while casting a millimeter-sized dot of light at short distances, its light easily gets meter-sized when they reach flight cruise heights, shining airplane’s cabins and interfering with the pilot’s vision. However, as by inverse square law, the power is distributed across the beam.
So you’re saying a space orbiting death ray will cast an area large enough to generate solar power eh? HEY ELON!
On the contrary.
So a really big death ray? Perhaps some sort of doomsday device?
You just need perfectly rigid solar mirror technology that you can store in a rocket while being launched.
It’s like that episode of futurama - the mirror wernstrom put in space to reflect sunlight, which gets tapped by a little space rock, and tilts into a solar powered death beam
I don’t even want to imagine the environmental studies and hurdles they’ll have to jump through to artificially alter an areas day/night cycle. There’s a laundry list of environmental concerns that I’m sure any homeowner or eco-activist worth their salt would jump on. Not to mention glare and impacts to air traffic, on and on.
Would make my solar panels pretty darn effective though. Would probably be great for SAD in winter too. Clever idea. Not sure I can get behind it though.
Oh Mr X guy, so you want to fly a Teslas into space? Are there environmental impacts? Oh. Yes, one more million. Okay looks like you’ve covered all the possible impacts, you have our go for launch!
Sending a rocket on a ridiculously stupid task with no useful purpose is not even remotely close to having the same negative impact as this has the potential to. It’s so far apart that it is honestly quite stupid to even attempt to compare them.
Oh wait…
Oh Mr X guy, so you want to fly a big ass mirror into space? Are there environmental impacts? Oh. Yes, one more million. Okay looks like you’ve covered all the possible impacts, you have our go for launch! We might need a few more millions of reasons to keep the masses at bay please. Thank you!
Honestly if X guy could please hurry up and buy this company.
I need them to go bankrupt or have become illegal before they send some actual junk into space. And if they do send something it needs to have stupid decisions by a higher up so it cant actually remain up there and ruin the nights further.
you think profit obsessed c-suites give even a moments consideration about environmental concerns?
Might be fun for novelty on a concert venue or ball game, but I can’t imagine it’d be economical for solar farms.
I will learn how to make an orbital rocket just to fuck this things day up.
No, night is already too bright. You are not ruining this for me further.
This was a project by the soviets in the 80s as well. I know there is a well produced YouTube video on the subject, but sadly it must be named something incomprehensible like “the forgotten Russian project to turn night into day.” Because I can’t fucking find it.
Here’s a Smithsonian article instead. here
Maybe this?
Yes! I knew it had to be mustard, didn’t think to check his nebula thank you!
Why not just put up a Moonlight Tower?
This has the potential for some amazing pranks. Imagine being on a camping trip somewhere, the dawn light illuminates your tent, so you get up and start going about your day, making breakfast etc, and all of a sudden the sun goes out.
I was actually thinking 🤔…hmm this would be the best way to tell some other civilization that we live in this planetary system…get a mirror big enough to point a beam out of its normal trajectory in some sort of non random fashion. Basically smoke signals using a mirror.
A laser would work better. Over vast distances, a giant mirror would eventually scatter the light, not to mention would be super inaccurate.
Speaking of inaccurate, even if we could shine a mirror or a laser, it could be millions of years until that light reaches any other civilization, then they would have to travel millions of lightyears to reach the point of origin of the “smoke signal”.
I say “point of origin” and not “Earth”, because our galaxy would have also travelled far from the spot we were in when we fired our laser. The Milky Way travels at over 2 million km/h, so even in a measly million years, that puts us over 2 trillion km from where we started. (see edit)
You can probably see where this is going.
I’m of the mind that we are undoubtedly not alone in the universe - the sheer scale and endlessness of it tells us that there are an infinite number of possibilities. There most likely are other worlds that formed and evolved in the exact same manner as ours, maybe even under conditions so perfect as to cause them to follow the exact same path as us.
Though the unfortunate truth is, we probably will never encounter another species. There could be an infinite number of ourselves, but we are forever separated by the ever expanding breadth of space and time.
EDIT:
My math was totally wrong, just realized that I was basing my estimates on how far our galaxy travels in an hour, not a year. The distance we travel in a million years would be closer to seventeen quadrillion five hundred twenty trillion kilometres.
To be fair if they’re able to locate the point of origin they’re probably able to calculate the time it took to get there as well as the current position of our galaxy.
I think this would take way to long to travel somewhere where things acutally live the light will probably only reach them long after humanity is gone.
Humans on Earth have been transmitting radio waves into space for over a century now through various means: television broadcasts, radio communications, and radar signals.
… or you know, use radio
Mustard actually just did a video on the first attempts of this by the Soviets/Russians.
nebula.tv/…/mustard-the-man-who-built-a-spotlight…
Answering questions in the article:
But is it actually possible? Yes. It’s not complicated by modern space industry standards.
Is it smart to do? Absolutely not, it is insanely wasteful and unpractical. Electric light exists, just sayin’. Also, you either need to switch between satellites in a swarm, which will suddenly change the angles of light, or you have to put satellites onto geostationary orbit, which is even more wasteful.
And would it really look exactly as portrayed in the video? No. It is known they did not use satellites for it, most likely it was a drone. Light will come from a much greater distance and will also dissipate more - harassing your surroundings, that is.
Even if it were actually doable, this a dumbass idea. It doesn’t take a genius to recognize that night/darkness are necessary for life and that we already have enough environmental problems related to artificial light pollution.
yeah, shit’s fucking cooking, you know what’d be great? let’s add more heat, at night!
Do you think that any C-suite shithead backing this cares about environmental consequences?
Maybe build that Stanford torus station instead? It’ll be expensive initially, but we can send some people to live there.
Can we just for a minute stop fucking around in space? It’s getting annoying
It’s just life giving light that we’re talking about here. 😂.
I can’t tell if you’re being sarcastic or not, but it’s unfamothably stupid.
Think, for a second: we already have way too much energy in the system, with too much heat that can’t leave easily. You really want to add to that? REALLY?
Because that’s painfully fucking dumb.
We should probably stop fucking around with Earth first but I don’t see that happening while sociopaths rule the world
I just feel like we at least can, in theory, keep the shit we do on/to earth under control.
Space is a different world entirely and not only do we not know what effects our shitty pollution projects have out there, we don’t even really care about it as far as I can tell.
We aren’t even doing it NOW though… Not even close.
Space will become so littered with high speed debris that within our lifetime it will be no longer safe to launch.