Welcome to the latest installment of “Writer Fuel – cool real-world stories that might inspire your little writer heart. Check out our Writer Fuel page on the LimFic blog for more inspiration. Today:
Chinese scientists have built an “artificial moon” research facility that will enable them to simulate low-gravity environments using magnetism.
The facility, slated for official launch this year, will use powerful magnetic fields inside a 2-foot-diameter (60 centimeters) vacuum chamber to make gravity “disappear.” The scientists were inspired by an earlier experiment that used magnets to levitate a frog.
Li Ruilin, a geotechnical engineer at the China University of Mining and Technology, told the South China Morning Post that the chamber, which will be filled with rocks and dust to imitate the lunar surface, is the “first of its kind in the world” and that it could maintain such low-gravity conditions for “as long as you want.”
