[HN Gopher] Rapid-fire laser diverts lightning strikes
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Rapid-fire laser diverts lightning strikes
Author : yipbub
Score : 96 points
Date : 2023-01-18 05:50 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.nature.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.nature.com)
| tarotuser wrote:
| If I remember correctly, and this is going Waaaay back to the
| show "Discovery 2000" (when naming things 2000 was futuristic):
|
| There was a show/discussion about police cars being armed with
| ultraviolet lasers and electric probes on the beampath, in order
| to short-circuit a car's electric system. That's because,
| according to the TV show, a UV laser creates an ionized channel
| that is relatively easy for electricity to travel.
|
| There's obvious questions here... Like what's the breakdown
| voltage of this UV channel? How much voltage is applied? What's
| its feasibility of being mounted on a vehicle?
|
| But given this recent article, it seems that yes, it is more than
| just a negligible effect, given it can steer lightning.
| yojo wrote:
| Aside: I think you mean this show:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beyond_Tomorrow_(TV_series)
|
| I knew it in its "Beyond 2000" incarnation.
| dclowd9901 wrote:
| Man, I loved that show -- a modern day version of "World of
| Tomorrow"
| mc32 wrote:
| What happens when planes fly by? Would they track planes and not
| fire when they detect them and rely on traditional lightningrods
| or let it fly anyway?
| bujak300 wrote:
| There is a cylinder of restricted airspace that is activated
| beforehand
| gpm wrote:
| For testing purposes.
|
| For theoretical future operational purposes I'd imagine
| they'd still want to be able to use this when planes are
| flying. But could likely track planes and adjust the beam
| slightly to avoid them, or just disable the system for the
| rare couple of seconds when a plane is in the exact wrong
| place (in front of the beam).
| mc32 wrote:
| It makes sense to do that for a testing site and wait for
| lightning to happen. How does it work for general purpose?
|
| They can't just say in three microseconds "we're restricting
| airspace --get out now! Ooops, too late!"
| sargun wrote:
| I'm surprised that this phenomenon has only recently been
| confirmed. Electrolasers
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrolaser) have been thought
| about for 30+ years. The idea if you create a laser-induced
| plasma channel for the weapon's energy path. The same idea seems
| like it'd work with lightning. In fact, it seems like some
| research for guiding lightning with LIPCs has been done since 10
| years ago (https://aip.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/1.3690961).
| tevon wrote:
| I don't know much about lasers. Why are these phased and not
| continuous?
| jcims wrote:
| A picosecond pulse emitted 1000 times a second is 1 1:1e9 duty
| cycle. You'd need a billion times the laser to send that power
| level continuously.
| lightedman wrote:
| Higher power delivery potential in a pulse without causing
| LASER breakdown.
| blakesterz wrote:
| I feel like this is one of those "in mice" kind of studies, where
| the headline reads like "Cure Found For Cancer" and then the
| study was "one type of toenail cancer in mice and only female
| genetically engineered brown mice raised on the space station."
|
| There's still something really cool about lasers shooting at and
| controlling lightning though. Just doesn't sound like it's
| happening anytime soon. Stelios Tzortzakis, a
| laser physicist at the University of Crete, Greece, who was not
| involved in the research. "If it's useful or not, only time can
| say." Over 10 weeks of observation, the team
| spotted the laser channelling 4 lightning events during 6 hours
| of thunderstorms. A high-speed camera clearly showed one strike
| following the straight line of the laser beam, rather than taking
| a branching path.
| qikInNdOutReply wrote:
| Now imagine, using this, to print circuits on the outside of a
| plasma, and driving current through it, allowning the plasma to
| form its own temporary coils, containing it. Basically on demand
| magnetic fields, in a fusion containment device, to push back
| deformed plasma containers.. whack the mol
| Filligree wrote:
| We can barely predict plasma even in the simplest cases. But
| one day, yes. Sounds like an interesting idea for an SF novel
| right now.
|
| (I might use it. :)
| qikInNdOutReply wrote:
| "You may have the handkerchief i carry"
|
| (PS: I will pirate your novel with this comment in mind :)
| jcims wrote:
| Isn't that Helion in a nutshell?
| gpm wrote:
| No? Helion doesn't use lasers, just old school
| electromagnets.
|
| They do use the currents in the plasma to help confine it,
| but by having plasma be in a really simple shape that lends
| itself to that (a torus) not by "printing circuits" on it.
| They then take two of these and accelerate them towards
| eachother while making the toruses smaller (and denser) by
| activating electromagnets with very precise timing.
| edgyquant wrote:
| I don't care how well we can explain it, that's magic
| flir wrote:
| It's even got runes.
| gpm wrote:
| Magic is technology which we can wield but not understand.
|
| This proposal is technology which we can understand but not
| wield.
|
| I'd suggest it's "anti-magic".
| ww520 wrote:
| Isn't this caused by the ionized air produced by the laser
| vaporizing the air molecules? The laser hitting the air produces
| ionized air along its path. Ionized air is conductive. The line
| of conductive ionized air brings down the lightning.
| thadk wrote:
| If further confirmed, this calls for a new art installation like
| Lightning Field (1977) https://publicdelivery.org/walter-de-
| maria-lightning-field/
| 71a54xd wrote:
| Incredible technology but moreover, that is the coolest "mad
| scientist" esque lab I've ever seen! Victorian era brick building
| next to a futuristic rod and lab?!
|
| However, it's kinda obvious this could lead to an incredibly cool
| weapons system.
| yipbub wrote:
| I wonder if this could be the first step in harnessing lightning
| energy.
| ortusdux wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvesting_lightning_energy
|
| "A single lightning strike, while fast and bright, contains
| very little energy by the time it gets down to earth, and
| dozens of lightning towers like those used in the system tested
| by AEHI would be needed to operate five 100-watt light bulbs
| for the course of a year."
|
| As I understand it, most of the energy from a lightning strike
| is turned into heat.
| Footkerchief wrote:
| Clearly the solution is aerostats tethered by transmission
| cables.
| ortusdux wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightning_rocket
|
| "A lightning rocket is a rocket that unravels a conductor,
| such as a fine copper wire, as it ascends, to conduct
| lightning charges to the ground. Lightning strikes derived
| from this process are called "triggered lightning.""
|
| I like the idea of a longer lasting solution, though the
| tethers would need to be high-temp superconducting cables.
| The wires in triggered lightning vaporize and the energy is
| mostly lost to heat.
| JonChesterfield wrote:
| Though given high temperature superconductivity, we can
| probably do better than cables into the atmosphere.
| [deleted]
| tonmoy wrote:
| Some quick math shows that even if we harvested every single
| lightning strike in the US and converted it all to electricity,
| it will account to roughly 0.6% of all electricity generation
| of the US. I doubt it'll be useful as a means of energy
| generation
| dylan604 wrote:
| I don't need to power all of the US. I just need it to
| reanimate my creature, or to energize my flux capacitor
| knodi123 wrote:
| Ah, but what if you call it locally-harvested organic free-
| range electricity? Might be worth a lot more, economically
| speaking.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| Maybe harnessing it to make cool artwork
| severino wrote:
| Wasn't this already achieved in 1955? Or was it 1985?
| dylan604 wrote:
| In 1985, you had to time with hitting 88mph too, so it made
| it much more difficult. Although, they had the advantage of
| knowing the future of exactly when it would strike.
| krunck wrote:
| So now pilots flying near thunderclouds need to worry about
| lasers too?
| chrisshroba wrote:
| > A high-speed camera clearly showed one strike following the
| straight line of the laser beam, rather than taking a branching
| path.
|
| Why isn't the picture posted!
| SiempreViernes wrote:
| Probably because "following the straight line of the laser
| beam" should have a "for a bit" at the end; the lightning only
| goes (relatively) straight for a short distance so it doesn't
| _look_ very impressive.
|
| You can see the picture they are talking about here:
| https://www.nature.com/articles/s41566-022-01139-z/figures/3
|
| And this one shows two other examples of similar strikes along
| with the laser drawn on top:
| https://www.nature.com/articles/s41566-022-01139-z/figures/2
| dylan604 wrote:
| What do you mean it doesn't look impressive?
|
| If you can attract the lightning to a lightning rod to
| prevent it from hitting other targets like sporting fields
| with lighting equipment and bipedal fleshy beings from
| getting struck, then seems like a very impressive thing to
| me.
| mzs wrote:
| fig 2. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41566-022-01139-z
| mattkrause wrote:
| It is! The link goes to a "News and Views" summary (more
| background, less data) rather than the original article. Check
| out Figure 2 of the original article to see lightening being
| diverted
| https://www.nature.com/articles/s41566-022-01139-z/figures/2
|
| Here's the reference if you want to read the whole thing (it's
| open access)
|
| Houard, A., Walch, P., Produit, T. et al. Laser-guided
| lightning. Nat. Photon. (2023).
| https://doi.org/10.1038/s41566-022-01139-z
| gregjw wrote:
| Benjamin Franklin would be proud
| TechBro8615 wrote:
| Can this be weaponized?
| bloggie wrote:
| TRUMPF is indeed on the forefront of directed energy weapons,
| lovingly known as distance welding.
| https://twitter.com/BaainBw/status/1585525065428369408
| aidenn0 wrote:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrolaser
| j1elo wrote:
| With such title, this automatically becomes the kind of content
| where I want more photos and videos, and less words. I hoped to
| find some cool sample of the effect but... only a green laser
| pointing to the sky. Oh well then, I'll read the text and imagine
| it myself!
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