Saying “I’m in the space race” with his works, China has recently come to the fore with the artificial Sun and attracted the attention of many people. According to reports, Chinese scientists have now built an “artificial Moon” with Moon-like gravity to help prepare taikonauts for future exploration missions.
According to the South China Morning Post; The artificial Moon is located in Xuzhou, in China’s Jiangsu province, and was designed in a way that could “eliminate gravity,” according to its designers.
Currently, it is necessary to fly in an airplane that goes into free fall, then climbs back up, to simulate low gravity on Earth, but this takes several minutes.
THERE IS AN ARTIFICIAL MOON VIEW IN THE ROOM
The new Moon simulator, which consists of a small 1.2 square meter (2 ft) room, says it can “simulate low or zero gravity as much as you want”. It is also reported that an artificial lunar landscape was created inside the room, consisting of rocks and grains of sand as light as those found on the Moon’s surface.
USES A MAGNETIC FIELD TO SIMULATE
The gravity on the Moon is one-sixth that on Earth. So inside the artificial gravity chamber, the team uses a strong magnetic field to simulate the “levitation effects” of the low gravitational force.
“Some experiments, such as impact testing, need only a few seconds, while other experiments, such as creep testing, may take several days,” said lead scientist Li Ruilin from the China University of Mining and Technology.
MAGNETIC FIELD IDEAS FROM RUSSIAN PHYSICIAN
The idea of using magnetic fields to levitate came from Nobel Prize-winning Russian physicist Andre Geim, who used magnets for a frog.
Geim told the South China Morning Post that he was “pleased” to see his work lead to applications in space exploration, explaining that magnetic levitation is not the same as anti-gravity. But he noted there are situations where mimicking microgravity using magnetic fields can be very valuable.
JOINT BASE FROM CHINA AND RUSSIA
China aims to send a taikonaut to the Moon by 2030 and establish a base on Earth’s satellite by the end of this decade in a joint project with Russia.
“ARTIFICIAL MOON” WILL PLAY AN IMPORTANT ROLE
The Artificial Moon is expected to play an important role in future missions to the Moon, by allowing scientists to prepare taikonauts to plan exercises and prepare for construction in low gravity.