Facts for Prelims (FFP)
Source: Indian Express
Context: According to a report, Tokyo-based ALE is set to launch the satellite in 2025 and it hopes to give people all over the world “the opportunity to view the world’s first live human-made meteor shower.”
- The project is called Sky Canvas and it is designed to collect atmospheric data in the mesosphere, which is the third layer of the atmosphere.
- ALE plans to do this by using a pressure-driven system of gas tanks that will shoot pellets at a speed of 8 kilometres per second.
About meteor showers:
- A natural meteor shower happens when our planet passes through the trail of debris left by a comet or an asteroid.
- Meteors are chunks of rocks and ice that are ejected from comets as they orbit the Sun.
- Around 30 meteor showers that are visible to observers on Earth occur every year and some of them have been observed for centuries.
