Two bright beams lit up the desert sky of Lone Pine, a town near the craggy peak of Mount Whitney, California, on Saturday.
It sounds straight out of Twin Peaks, but drivers on Highway 395 felt compelled to investigate the ‘incredibly bright’ light.
Cayden Thompson told the San Francisco Chronicle that the light was ‘blinding’ and clearly not from car headlights.
‘They put out so much energy that you can’t stand in front of them or you’d get burned,’ Thompson said. ‘It was pretty unbelievable.’
But what the light actually was may have sounded just as science fiction as aliens – a tech start-up that wants to send giant mirrors into space.
The ‘sunlight company’ wants to brighten the night with 50,000 mirrors orbiting Earth, bouncing sunlight to the dark side of the planet.
This light ‘on demand’, as its website puts it, could power solar farms after sunset, illuminate city streets and provide lighting for rescue workers.
Reflect Orbital told Metro it was testing its cosmic nightlight using a pair of high-wattage spotlights in a dirt scraper on Horseshoe Meadows Road.
The mobile lights simulated how search-and-rescue teams could use the ‘sunlight service’ in the 2030s.
China Lake Mountain Rescue carried out search drills, stretcher carrying and equipment rigging in the dark by headlamp, then under the Reflect Orbital lights.
Phillip Cash, the volunteer nonprofit’s operations leader, said the desert was brighter than it would have been with a full moon.
‘There’s no light and then suddenly you can see three miles around you in every direction,’ he said, adding that it was ‘easier’ to work in the light.
Reflect Orbital, based in Hawthorne, obtained permits in advance and coordinated with the nearby Edwards Air Force Base and police.
‘Search-and-rescue teams are expected to be our first customers, so this was a real-world test conducted alongside teams who would use our technology,’ it said.
Reflect Orbital announced last week it had bought two rocket launches from India’s Skyroot Aerospace.
The aim is to test its Eärendil-1 satellite, which would launch a 60-foot mirror 400 miles up into the cosmos to reflect sunlight onto a circular, three-mile-wide patch down below.
Someone looking up would see a speck in the sky about as bright as a full moon or Venus.
By 2035, it will deploy a constellation of 50,000 satellites, charging about £3,700 an hour for the light of one mirror, depending on the contract.
‘Light pollution from space’, says astronomer
But the plans have drawn criticism from astronomers, who fear it could mess with the stargazing efforts that help us understand the universe.
It would amount to ‘light pollution from space’, says Dr Robert Massey, the deputy executive director of the UK’s Royal Astronomical Society.
‘We’re deeply concerned that if it goes ahead, then by the 2030s, large areas of the Earth’s surface would see hundreds of very bright satellites at once, and locations near the beams illuminating the ground would face light pollution worse than in many city centers,’ he says.
‘I’m not at all surprised that the test drew such criticism.
‘Would any of us really want beams from space eventually illuminating our homes and workplaces in this way?’
Environmental groups and experts worry the night light could meddle with local wildlife, as critters struggle to tell if it’s day or night.
Reflect Orbital thinks so. The satellites could be a tool to reduce the burning of fossil fuels, the company says, and has worked with astronomers and scientists to design the project.
‘We’ll keep working closely with local communities and authorities wherever we operate, and are excited to show how this technology can help save lives,’ the company adds.
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