When it amount to the climate crisis , political discussion often rests on the assumption that a technological answer will save us from ourselves and the glasshouse emissions that we stay on to pump into the atmosphere . These solution are far from ready to be deployed , but progress and marriage proposal are being made . Now , scientists have put forward a novel idea suggesting it would be easy to reduce the amount of sunshine develop to our planet than curb emissions : hang a giantsunshade on a nearby asteroid .

The advance envision the deployment of a solar shield , an interplanetary parasol that would sit at L1 . This a special gravitational area that is always between the Earth and the Sun , but it moves with our satellite as Earth goes around our lead . It is crucial that it stays in that position or it wo n’t bring . But to stay there , it need to be monumental , or the pressure of sunlight will drive it away .

The traditional estimate for such a sun shield is 3.5 million long ton . That would be like launching half of theGreat Pyramid of Gizainto space . But something monumental is very expensive and complicated to send out into distance . So far , launch vehicles can sendabout 100 tons of payloadinto space . That would be 35,000 launches needed .

An stargazer from the University of Hawaiʻi Manoa has been able to massively cut such requirements by proposing a radical solution : alternatively of receive a massive cuticle , how about having a cosmic umbrella with a light sunshade part and a heavier equaliser , in this scenario a capturedasteroid ?

" In Hawaiʻi , many apply an umbrella to block off the sunshine as they walk about during the day . I was thinking , could we do the same for Earth and thereby mitigate the close at hand catastrophe of climate modification ? " István Szapudi said in astatement .

The approaching is a lot more feasible than the premature approach but it still need a large number of launches , the ability to move an asteroid to L1 , and also a way to tether the asteroid to the cuticle like graphene nanotubes . So more feasible , but not yet realizable .

The paper is published in the journalProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences .