Peer-Reviewed Publication

PLOS

In an astro-engineering approach to climate change mitigation, researchers calculate how dust could be fired from the Moon into space to attentuate the Sun’s rays.

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Article URL: https://journals.plos.org/climate/article?id=10.1371/journal.pclm.0000133

Article Title: Dust as a solar shield      

Author Countries: USA

Funding: The University of Utah Office of Undergraduate Research provided a stipend to co-author SHK through the Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program (https://ift.tt/eVpagvJ). The funder(s) had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

JOURNAL

PLOS Climate

DOI

10.1371/journal.pclm.0000133 

ARTICLE TITLE

Dust as a solar shield

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

8-Feb-2023

COI STATEMENT

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

From EurekAlert!

Here is the Abstract

Abstract

We revisit dust placed near the Earth–Sun L₁ Lagrange point as a possible climate-change mitigation measure. Our calculations include variations in grain properties and orbit solutions with lunar and planetary perturbations. To achieve sunlight attenuation of 1.8%, equivalent to about 6 days per year of an obscured Sun, the mass of dust in the scenarios we consider must exceed 10¹⁰ kg. The more promising approaches include using high-porosity, fluffy grains to increase the extinction efficiency per unit mass, and launching this material in directed jets from a platform orbiting at L₁. A simpler approach is to ballistically eject dust grains from the Moon’s surface on a free trajectory toward L₁, providing sun shade for several days or more. Advantages compared to an Earth launch include a ready reservoir of dust on the lunar surface and less kinetic energy required to achieve a sun-shielding orbit.

HT/Frazier