A Japanese start-up will deliver shooting stars on demand made from artificial meteors. The start-up, ALE will launch a micro satellite that can eject shooting stars at exactly the right time and place to put on a celestial show.

Founded by Lena Okajima, who holds a doctorate in astronomy said, “I'm thinking of streams of meteors that are rare in nature. It is artificial but I want to make really beautiful ones that can impress viewers”.

The team behind ALE collaborated with engineers and scientists in various universities in Japan to create their microsatellite. The microsatellite will orbit the Earth and is capable of ejecting dozens of spheres just a few centimeters in size, which it will need to create artificial shooting stars.

These balls will race through the atmosphere at around 7-8 kilometers (up to five miles). They will glow brightly once released as they will be experiencing friction with the air.

Each sphere will also be moving through the atmosphere at 4 to 6 miles per second. Although this sounds fast, it pales in comparison to the 50 miles per second that real shooting stars hurtle through the atmosphere.

According to Okajima, it is also possible to change the color of each bright streak, which will offer the possibility of a multi-colored flotilla of shooting stars.

The artificial shooting stars are expected to shine for some seconds before burning out. Okajima said that it's possible for people to eventually grow tired of catching shooting stars as sometimes they can only see one at a time.

Although it would look beautiful each shooting star would cost around a million yen ($8,100).