Man-made meteor shower? Japan plans just that for 2020 Tokyo OlympicsMumbai, May 22(AZINS) Japan isn't like most countries, the proud nation wants to put its technological advances on display in a spectacular way. A Japanese startup company Star-ALE thinks they can create a man-made meteor shower for 2020 Olympics held in Tokyo.

Star-ALE calls it Sky Canvas light show, an artificial meteor shower that attendees can view from an area of more than 120 miles. But for this to happen, the tech startup needs to take it beyond the sky, space to be precise.

Even though the Tokyo Olympics is about four years away, tests are expected to commence as soon as next year. The company is to launch a series of microsatellites assimilated with its own special kind of pyrotechnics.

These microsatellites will be equipped with 500 to 1,000 of these special fireworks called "source particles" that will be reentered into Earth's atmosphere to create the artificial meteor shower.

“The particles will travel about one-thirds of the way around the Earth and enter the atmosphere. It will then begin plasma emission and become a shooting star.” wrote Star-ALE on its official website.

The high-tech pyrotechnics aren't cheap, each one of these artificial fireworks is priced at around a million yen (about Rs 6,12,100) and this does not include developing and launching the microsatellites.

A problem that the developers foresee is a cloudy sky, though the company has a fail-safe plan in place. The launch can be rescheduled but they need at least 100 minutes notice prior to the launch.

As one of the leading nation in technology research, it will be exciting to see if Japan has any other tricks up its sleeve at the 2020 Olympics.