A palm-sized Japanese satellite in orbit around the Earth is to flash a Morse code message that will be visible around the world from next month, the mission commander said on Friday.
Researchers hope the satellite, measuring 10cm3 and launched from the International Space Station yesterday, will become the first orbiter to transmit an LED message across the night sky.
The message was originally intended to be seen just in Japan, but people around the world have asked for the satellite to communicate when it overflies them, said Takushi Tanaka, professor at the Fukuoka Institute of Technology.
“Requests came from far more people than I expected — a man in Silicon Valley wanted to see it while another man wanted us to flash it over Central Park in New York,” Tanaka told reporters.
He said he has also received requests from residents of cities in Italy, Germany, Britain and Hungary.
“There is no practical aim to this, but it is a fun experiment that everybody can join,” he said.
Observers, ideally with binoculars, will be able to see flashes of light — green in the northern hemisphere, where people will see the “front” of the satellite, and red in the southern hemisphere, where the “back” will be visible.
Morse code uses a series of dots and dashes to represent letters of the alphabet and is commonly understood across the world as a way of transmitting pieces of text.
“A man in Slovakia who has a laser beam said he would flash back if he sees the message from space. He wants the satellite to take pictures of his beam and send them to Earth,” Tanaka said.
The professor said his team would try their best to accommodate requests, but warned being able to see the Morse code message would be largely dependent on the weather.
The message it is to send is “Hi, this is Niwaka Japan.”
Niwaka is the satellite’s nickname and reflects a play on words in a southwestern Japanese dialect.
Besides transmitting its LED message, the camera-equipped satellite will also take images of Earth and send them to a base station in an experiment on high-speed data transmissions.
The solar-powered device was released from the International Space Station 390km above the Earth and is now in a regular orbit.
Specific timings and locations are to be announced on the institute’s Web site: www.fit.ac.jp/kenkyu/fitsat1/ — in Japanese and English.
SEEKING CHANGE: A hospital worker said she did not vote in previous elections, but ‘now I can see that maybe my vote can change the system and the country’ Voting closed yesterday across the Solomon Islands in the south Pacific nation’s first general election since the government switched diplomatic allegiance from Taiwan to Beijing and struck a secret security pact that has raised fears of the Chinese navy gaining a foothold in the region. The Solomon Islands’ closer relationship with China and a troubled domestic economy weighed on voters’ minds as they cast their ballots. As many as 420,000 registered voters had their say across 50 national seats. For the first time, the national vote also coincided with elections for eight of the 10 local governments. Esther Maeluma cast her vote in the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was