Lasers and lightning
Lasers and lightning
This is fun. They're going to shoot the sky with a massive laser on top of a mountain to make lightning go where they want (if it works).
clicky
Can't find much more detail on it, might do a bit more searching later.
clicky
Can't find much more detail on it, might do a bit more searching later.
Re: Lasers and lightning
Wouldn’t the laser itself get hit all the time?
where once I used to scintillate
now I sin till ten past three
now I sin till ten past three
Re: Lasers and lightning
The laser would presumably be pulsed, and generating an ionized column into the sky. That will only be a fairly weakly conducting trail for the lightning to follow, and could be generated close to a much more conductive lightning conductor - maybe only a few inches away. Probably the ionized trail would short itself to the lightning conductor even before the lightning stroke followed it.
I'm disappointed you didn't mention the name of the company. The Trumpf Laser would definitely get a bunch of crowdsourced funding in the US...
I'm disappointed you didn't mention the name of the company. The Trumpf Laser would definitely get a bunch of crowdsourced funding in the US...
Re: Lasers and lightning
It is, at 1 kHz. The "Terawatt scale" mentioned in the article would be the peak power of the pulses, rather than the average power, because otherwise you'd need a fair few very large power stations to make it go. Still puts my laser to shame though, that's only ~145 kW (and only 2W average).dyqik wrote: ↑Fri Jul 23, 2021 12:59 pmThe laser would presumably be pulsed, and generating an ionized column into the sky. That will only be a fairly weakly conducting trail for the lightning to follow, and could be generated close to a much more conductive lightning conductor - maybe only a few inches away. Probably the ionized trail would short itself to the lightning conductor even before the lightning stroke followed it.
I'm disappointed you didn't mention the name of the company. The Trumpf Laser would definitely get a bunch of crowdsourced funding in the US...
Re: Lasers and lightning
Presumably you could even fire it through a hole in a tower.
where once I used to scintillate
now I sin till ten past three
now I sin till ten past three
Re: Lasers and lightning
Giant lasers, is there any problem that they can't solve?
(see the design of one of my T-shirts here. I bet a giant laser can help with that.)
Re: Lasers and lightning
On a serious point you must have to position them away from air routes.
where once I used to scintillate
now I sin till ten past three
now I sin till ten past three
Re: Lasers and lightning
One of the use cases mentioned was for protecting airports. I think the idea is that the lasers can make lightning rods effective over a much wider area than otherwise for the same height of rod.
With the laser guide stars the people up the hill use for adaptive optics for optical astronomy, there's a direct channel from air traffic control to the telescope operators to allow the guide stars to be cut if a plane wanders into the area.