Earth’s Artificial Moon By Isabella Pagadala Year 9
China has built a 2 foot vacuum which uses
2010. He is the only individual, as of now, to
magnets to recreate lunar gravity here on Earth.
have received both Nobel and Ig Nobel prizes.
Based on Andre Geim’s Nobel prize winning
Giant magnets levitate the room approximately
experiment, China aims to use the technology to
2 feet high and inside are rocks and dust,
test equipment in low gravity environments
formulated to imitate the moon's surface. It has
that mimic that of the moon.
the ability to 'make gravity disappear’ according
In 2000, Andre Giem was awarded a nobel prize
to
for making frogs levitate. Many materials are
technology could replicate lunar conditions for
diamagnetic, meaning that when placed near a
mere minutes, whereas this can supposedly
magnet, their atoms fight the magnetic field, and
intimidate low or even zero gravity conditions
the object tries to move away. If a material is
for 'for as long as you want,'. Although it is not
placed in a strong enough magnetic field, it
big enough for astronauts; it is still an immense
levitates. This is the basis for China’s moon.
step forward.
Then after discovering how to isolate graphene
This technology could be used to “assess the
in 2004 he was awarded the Ig Nobel prize in
viability of a human settlement there” and
its
designers.
Previously,
low
gravity
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