A real fake moon or just a trial balloon?

Most city dwellers — even in India — are now used to murky skies that reflect the dull glow of street lighting rather than any celestial object. So, an artificial moon as a gigantic night light would probably not make much of a difference. Fanciful as it sounds, however, the announcement by a private Chinese space contractor last week that it would launch such a moon for Chengdu city is neither a new idea nor an entirely loony one. Space mirrors reflecting the sun to light up dark spots on Earth was mooted many moons ago by the German rocket scientist Hermann Oberth, though the Chinese firm chose to attribute it to a French artist who imagined a necklace of mirrors above the earth to do the same for Parisian streets.

Solar-powered, city-specific moons to obviate the need for street lighting certainly sounds compelling. No wonder it has been tried out by using mountaintop mirrors to light up a small town in Norway and via the eclipsed Znamya space reflector project of the 1990s as a solution to the long, dark winters of northern Russia. But many people may not be moonstruck by the idea of turning night into day — and not merely because nocturnal animals and vegetation require times of darkness. What if fake moons also function as prying eyes in the sky focused on cities? Thankfully, it is still only a trial balloon.