Human ambition has led mankind thus far to mimic nature in every possible way. Be it the first-ever cloned sheep, artificial diamonds, natural objects and phenomenon, synthetic trees or lifelike robots, the quest never seems to satiate. These changes or transformations challenge the natural order and that is the reason why sometimes humanity is forced to face the brunt of some insolent endeavors. Anyhow, we’re here enlisting some of these ventures that impersonate the real thing.
On September 19, 2009, NASA scientists made the eastern US sky go radiant with a brilliant cloud of light. Mimicking the bright clouds of the Earth’s mesosphere, a rocket ejected exhaust particles at 173 miles above the Earth, and the rest was left for ground-based radar and cameras to capture that was a luminous display of conical light patterns.
Ski resort owners really appreciated it when artificial snowmaking came into practice in the early 1970s. However, Art Hunt, Dave Richey and Wayne Pierce invented the essential machinery i.e. the snow cannon in 1950. Now, since it has become a usual practice, the snowmakers force water and pressurized air through the machine that extends the ski seasons. In a climate-controlled environment, indoor ski slopes can be kept snow-clad all year around.
Cloud seeding: Vietnam washout
In early 1967, the US military carried out a cloud-seeding operation for a period of over five years during the Vietnam War to extend the rainy season. The military seeded the clouds with sodium iodide over the Ho Chi Minh Trail to create floods and wash out North Vietnamese supply routes.
World’s strongest artificially generated tornado
Guinness World Records proclaims the Mercedes-Benz Museum’s latest show/smoke elimination device generated tornado to be the world’s strongest one. Over 140 separate jets injected 28-tons of air into the courtyard at a height of 34.43-meters, generating an artificial tornado.
Sidoarjo’s Man-made Mud Volcano
On May 28, 2006, a mud volcano created havoc in Central Indonesia that was further found out to be an outcome of faulty drilling of a gas exploration well. A gas company, PT Lapindo Brantas, drilled a borehole in Sidoarjo, in East Java, Indonesia. When the drill string was extended beyond 9,300, water, steam and gas welled up which later overstuffed into a mammoth volcano.
Synthetic Tree
Though these trees might not fake the real one in appearance, these do follow the latter in function. Research scientists at the Department of Earth and Environmental Engineering at Columbia University have come up with synthetic “trees” to capture atmospheric CO2 1,000 times faster than their organic counterparts.
Supposedly, a man-created earthquake
The devastating quake is southwestern China’s Sichuan province is attributed to the enormous pressure on a fault line caused by water amassed in Zipingpu dam’s reservoir. If it is true, it is the worst ever intrusion of humanity into the haunts of nature that culminated in 87,000 deaths.
Jetty Island is now a man-made oasis
Jetty Island is just two miles long and 1/2-mile wide (only 500 feet wide at high tide). Now, it is fast developing into a man-made oasis serving as a sanctuary for 45 species of birds and hundreds of people per day.
ESO’s artificial star
A laser beam launched from Yepun, the fourth 8.2m Unit Telescope of the Very Large Telescope, blazed the sky with an artificial star at 90 km up in atmosphere on January 28, 2006. It was seen with the naked eye and enabled adaptive optics to measure the atmosphere’s blurring effect.