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Mirrors On The Moon

I enjoy nighttime too much. Even if this cover-the-moon-with-mirrors scheme had no effects on the environment or our ecosystems, I would hate having so little darkness in which to enjoy a good view of the stars, or just a break from the daylight. Granted, we would still get dark nights at every new moon, but once a month is not enough.
 
I have a feeling that giving such a middle finger to the diurnal/nocturnal cycle (which regulated pretty much every biological function on Earth) would be reason enough to NOT do it.
 
Plus, the chances are if it was in range of a moon based laser weapon(by range, I mean within the few days that the moon would be facing the asteroid), it would already be too late.

To the OP: What do you plan on calling this mirror system? Lucifer?

;)
 
If we coated the entire Earth facing side of the Moon with Mirrors would it make night time on the Earth a lot brighter? and would it make night time on Earth warmer?

What would be the benefits of this?

Would it be like having a second but smaller sun?

It would do nothing, except that during an eclipse, we could see up the Sun's skirt.

Joe, boo cocky
 
If we built THIS on the moon, would it be strong enough to deflect an incoming asteroid or comet?

The heating effect you could get from a focussed array of mirrors could be powerful enough to vapourise the surface of an asteroid.

Use Stefan's law. power density == s . temperature ^ 4

The moon is 3475 km diameter = Disc area of 9.5 x 10^12 square metres. Solar radiation is about 1kW per square metre at this distance, meaning the lunar disc gets 9.5 x 10^15 watts.

Coating the moon in mirrors which focus sunlight on an asteroid 1 km diameter (785,000 square-metres disc area), we can use Stefan's law to estimate the temperature it would be heated to.

power density = 9.5e15 / 7.85e5 = 1.21e10 W/m^2

t^4 = power density / (5.67e-8) = 2.13e17

t = 21000 'C , which would rapidly vapourise the surface of the asteroid. :)

I'm not sure how quickly it would cut into the surface, or how much material would be lifted to give a useful deflection.
 
If we built THIS on the moon, would it be strong enough to deflect an incoming asteroid or comet?

The heating effect you could get from a focussed array of mirrors could be powerful enough to vapourise the surface of an asteroid.

Use Stefan's law. power density == s . temperature ^ 4

The moon is 3475 km diameter = Disc area of 9.5 x 10^12 square metres. Solar radiation is about 1kW per square metre at this distance, meaning the lunar disc gets 9.5 x 10^15 watts.

Coating the moon in mirrors which focus sunlight on an asteroid 1 km diameter (785,000 square-metres disc area), we can use Stefan's law to estimate the temperature it would be heated to.

power density = 9.5e15 / 7.85e5 = 1.21e10 W/m^2

t^4 = power density / (5.67e-8) = 2.13e17

t = 21000 'C , which would rapidly vapourise the surface of the asteroid. :)

I'm not sure how quickly it would cut into the surface, or how much material would be lifted to give a useful deflection.

Were you genetically engineered before birth with DNA from the greatest scientific minds of the time?
 
Okay, Taccy, if you don't read books, how'd you get through maths in school?
 
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