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Laser Triggers Electrical Activity In Thunderstorm
esocid writes "A team of European scientists has deliberately triggered electrical activity in thunderclouds for the first time by aiming high-power pulses of laser light into a thunderstorm. At the top of South Baldy Peak in New Mexico during two passing thunderstorms, the researchers used laser pulses to create plasma filaments that could conduct electricity. No air-to-ground lightning was triggered because the filaments were too short-lived, but the laser pulses generated discharges in the thunderclouds themselves up to several meters long. Triggering lightning strikes is an important tool for basic and applied research because it enables researchers to study the mechanisms underlying lightning strikes. Moreover, triggered lightning strikes will allow engineers to evaluate and test the lightning-sensitivity of airplanes and critical infrastructure such as power lines. Research into laser-triggered lightning has been going on for some years. Until now, no experiment was able to produce a long enough plasma channel to affect the electrical activity inside clouds."
If the cost of the lasers and the energy for them didn't cost to much, it may be a possibility in the future to create energy using lightning strikes. Due to the infrequency of lightning, no one has ever made a great effort to try this. If the technology is cheap enough, this would be a great test and possibly a future energy source.
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How cool would a "lightning bomb" be? A bit of bother dropping several thousand of them during a storm the the bewildered havoc they could wreck!
I'm wondering if one of those microwave pseudo-EMP devices are directional enough to trigger a more massive plasma channel.
I'd go on a Vegan diet but the delivery time from Vega is too long. --brownkitty
...to shooting a laser at a big storm cloud trying to generate lightning. None whatsoever.
All's true that is mistrusted
A research site in Florida fires rockets trailing a wire into thunderstorms to stimulate lightning strikes: http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/technology/rocket_lightning_030130.html Video on this page: http://skydiary.com/gallery/chase2002/2002lightmovie.html
Sometimes I think these discoveries aren't the result of due scientific process. Sometimes I think a bunch of researchers were sitting around a break room table and said, "Let's shoot lasers at clouds!" Shooting anything with a laser to see what happens is a noble scientific endeavor.
Sorry, I think the Greeks were doing that with Zeus. You're a few thousand years late.
Just don't cross the beams.
This makes me think of the storm generator in Red Alert 2. If could something even remotely like that working...
Nuclear engineers build weapons. Civil engineers build targets.
Don't forget supervilliany.
Sounds like there could be a Darwin Award in this.
. . .means. "Reverse Engineering", I think is not the right term here. I think "applications" might be a better term, possibly. That is, you can possibly apply the scientific principle that has been discovered in this experiment to technologies such as you describe - e.g. using it to shield cities/property from damage.
The problem is not lack of( lightening strikes all over the planet every minute). The problem is getting it to hit in the same place over and over as well as being able to handle the amount of power that comes with it. If this can be used in areas that get lots of strikes, it may be possible to direct them to a collection spot. Btw, some good spots for collections would be mountain tops. Here in colorado, being on top a 14er in the mid-afternoon can be challenging. We actualy get a lot of fried texans and Californians each year (caused by an inability to understand that when you are above tree-line, you are the most electrically conductive item there).
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
A bunch of basement dwellers will rush outside with their mini laser lights to either get zapped by lightning or busted by the police for being terrorists when a plane flies overhead. Their sacrifices for science will be greatly appreciated by the community.
It's part of one of Baldrick's cunning plans. Clouds are made of water, right? And sharks swim in water. So if you kitted up the sharks with lasers...
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
you know, somehow i think it would be more effective just aiming the damn high-power laser at your target.. but maybe that's just me.
...I'm the only one!
Wait, let me read that headline again...
What if I do the same thing, and I do get different results?
1. Set up giant skyward-pointing laser.
2. Connect to mad-scientist-style lightning rod.
3. Wait for thunderstorm.
4. Profit!!!
We use the lightning to drive the laser, and syphon off the excess energy into big batteries. The process is self-sustaining until the storm runs out of juice, when it ends naturally. Free electricity for us and no lightning damage to the surrounding area 'cause we're sucking down all the bolts ourselves. It's win-win!
(of course, now all the America-hating greenies will come out of the woodwork, claiming that we're exploiting the world's natural lightning resources, and warning of grave consequences once we reach "peak storm" or other such nonsense)
Repton.
They say that only an experienced wizard can do the tengu shuffle.
I remember in the 80's seeing a TV show on directions in space-based weapons research for the SDI/Star Wars program. While both lasers and particle beam weapons were considered, each had their drawbacks. Lasers were subject to attenuation from clouds and atmospheric dust, whereas particle beam weapons were subject to bending from the Earth's magnetic field, as well as dispersion from electrostatic repulsion of the ions. One suggested possible approach was to use a (relatively) lower-power laser to ionize a plasma channel as a conduit for the ionized particle beam (although I expect that would only be effective in atmosphere and therefore would require a lot of LEO satellites). So laser-seeded lightning isn't a huge stretch in that direction - a bigger question would be why hasn't anybody tried it before?
But this article got me thinking about politicians and religious fundamentalists who lie through their teeth while exclaiming "If I'm lying, may God strike me down with lightning/where I stand". A set of geosync laser platforms powerful enough to create an ionized channel between storm clouds and people who have uttered that phrase just seems long overdue.
Laissez lire, et laissez danser; ces deux amusements ne feront jamais de mal au monde. - Voltaire