The United States is not the only country hoping to return to the moon. China is also working on future lunar missions to compete with NASA's efforts. And now it's even developing an "artificial Moon" to prepare for it.
Lunar gravity will be recreated in a laboratory. To be precise, this “artificial moon” will essentially be one vacuum chamber with a strong magnetic field simulating low gravity environment.
The facility is expected to be built in the coming months, according to reports from the South China Morning Post. Once started, it will make “gravity disappear,” he says Li Ruilin, geotechnical engineer at China University of Mining and Technology.
Before you imagine yourself jumping happily, read here.
At present, no lunar trip, however. There is a problem (with news coming from China we always need to delve deeper): the structure will have a diameter of “only” 60 centimeters. It's quite small, and there simply isn't enough room for a budding astronaut who wants to test out a mission in advance.
The first version of this miniature lunar environment, though, will be large enough to test certain equipment and instruments to see how they react to the Moon's low-gravity environment, ironing out any kinks before a real landing.
“Some experiments such as impact tests require only a few seconds in the simulator,” says the researcher. “But others may take several days.”
Mini lunar environment: thanks to a frog (and a Russian physicist)
The experiment was inspired by the studies of the Russian physicist Andrew Geim in 1997 in which he floated a frog on a magnet. An experiment that, although unusual, was valid enough to yield him the Nobel Prize in Physics.
