Seen here in this Kyodo photo is an Epsilon 4 rocket blasting off into space from the Uchinoura Space Center in Kimotsuki, Kagoshima Prefecture. According to the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, the rocket carried seven small satellites from the Tokyo startup ALE Co LTD. These micro-satellites carry up to four hundred tiny balls set to be released at 500km above the Earth to create an artificial meteor shower. ALE Co LTD plans to demonstrate this over Hiroshima sometime in the Spring of 2020. If successful, you'll have meteor showers on demand. No word on how much this will cost or how commercially viable this venture could be. ALE claims these artificial meteor showers (provided the weather cooperates) will be visible by millions. Naturally, we could think of better ways to use this technology, but we shall see how this works out, or not.
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