A 40km alien saucer is floating 1km above central Africa for a long time. What are the effects on the rainforest below?

Earlier this year, a second alien saucer came to Earth and stopped 1 kilometer above the central African nation of Wakanda. The Wakandans are fine with this and refuse to let anyone investigate or do anything about it, so it appears it'll be there for a while (at least 20 years).

However, Wakanda is heavily rainforested, as is the norm for central Africa. What effects will this alien saucer have on the rainforest ecosystem below? Specifically, how should we expect the ecosystem to evolve over the 20 years it stays above the surface?

Just like the first one, the alien saucer emits no visible light but is room-temperature (~25 degrees C) at all times and thus emits a small amount of IR. It has no obvious method of propulsion but nonetheless manages to remain fixed to the Earth's rotation and is completely immobile. Despite its stability, it also has a negligible mass which means that the gravity below is completely normal. This may be due to the fact that the disk is very thin, maxing out at perhaps 10s of meters thickness in the center.

posted almost 7 years ago

Dubukay‭

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