As If We Aren’t Screwing the Planet Enough, A Bubble Sun Shield is on the Cards

Climate change and global warming, two of the greatest man made threats to our earth, have become huge topics of discussion in recent years. For every government around the world, the stress is mounting. It seems like you can’t turn the TV on without being reminded that our world will crumble around us if we don’t step in and help. A group of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) researchers have been exploring their own ways of fighting the battle with an assortment of ‘space bubbles’ that will reflect the sun’s rays.

The group of researchers have come up with a plan of floating frozen bubbles, made of a thin film, roughly the size of Brazil, at the point in space where the gravitational pull cancels out. Playing on the idea of having solar shields to block incoming solar radiation, the team are confident that the bubbles will give no risk to interfering with the earth’s biosphere.

How would the team be able to send the bubbles to space? Well, the spheres would be sent up in molten form (or graphene-inforced ionic liquids) and inflate to a spherical shell. Though the Space Bubble research team is still looking at the stabilisation of the bubble raft, the shading capacity, the climate and ecosystem impact, amongst many other things, the project still looks hopeful. The team have already made statements, emphasising the fact that this is not by any way a means to comment on current climate change models, but to assist when and if needed.

We are all in the same boat in a sense, on the same warming-up seas, trying to stay afloat and MIT’s proposal is a positive step in the right direction to calming those waters.