Could a space bubble the size of Brazil save the planet?
A multidisciplinary team of researchers at MIT has come up with the idea of Space Bubbles, a scheme to cool our planet by creating a shield of bubbles the size of Brazil at a distance from the sun that would allow gravitational forces to balance (the Lagrange 1 point), in what would undoubtedly be the most ambitious piece of geoengineering ever.
Typically, the idea of using geoengineering to reduce the amount of solar radiation reaching the Earth’s surface involves injecting aerosols containing reflective materials, water vapor or other compounds into layers of the atmosphere. This would create a cloud layer intended to increase the albedo effect, along the lines of what happened after the volcanic eruption of Krakatoa in 1883, which resulted in a temperature decrease of 0.4°C in the northern hemisphere the following year.
The problem with such projects, however, is obvious: modifying the Earth’s atmosphere on such a scale could have unpredictable consequences, and once set in motion, there is no easy way back. MIT’s alternative, on the other hand, involves…
