Tokyo-based company ALE plans to launch small satellites that can produce artificial meteor showers. The project has been named Sky Canvas.
The metal "shooting star" particles by ALE Company will be carried by small satellites into a low-Earth orbit about 400 kilometers above Earth. It is designed to collect atmospheric data in the mesosphere, the third layer of the atmosphere.
Natural meteor showers occur when a planet passes through the path of debris left behind by a comet or asteroid. Meteors are pieces of rock and ice that are emitted by comets while orbiting the Sun.
The Perseids meteor shower that occurs in August each year was first recorded in Chinese history about 2,000 years ago.