France announced plans on Thursday to develop satellites armed with laser weapons that will be used against enemy satellites that threaten the country’s space forces. Popular Mechanics reports: In remarks earlier today, French Defense Minister Florence Parly said, “If our satellites are threatened, we intend to blind those of our adversaries. We reserve the right and the means to be able…
Tag: laser
France to develop anti-satellite laser weapons: minister
France plans to develop anti-satellite laser weapons, its defence minister said Thursday, laying out French ambitions to close the gap on rivals who are developing new arms and surveillance capabilities in space. Source: https://phys.org/news/2019-07-france-unveil-space-defence-strategy.html…
The age of giant particle accelerators like the LHC may be over
Enormous particle colliders probe the nature of reality, but much smaller laser-powered plasma accelerators could soon render them obsolete Source: https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg24332400-900-the-age-of-giant-particle-accelerators-like-the-lhc-may-be-over/?utm_campaign=RSS%7CNSNS&utm_source=NSNS&utm_medium=RSS&utm_content=home…
Second laser boosts Aeolus power
ESA’s Aeolus satellite, which carries the world’s first space Doppler wind lidar, has been delivering high-quality global measurements of Earth’s wind since it was launched almost a year ago. However, part of the instrument, the laser transmitter, has been slowly losing energy. As a result, ESA decided to switch over to the instrument’s second laser—and the mission is now back on…
Breakthrough Listen’s new search for alien lasers
For the last few decades, the search for extraterrestrial intelligence has focused on detecting radio signals. But a new collaboration between Breakthrough Listen and VERITAS will focus on looking for laser-like flashes of light. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/breakthrough-listen-seti-optical-beacons-technosignatures…
Breakthrough Listen launches new optical search with Arizona’s VERITAS telescope array
Breakthrough Listen—the initiative to find signs of intelligent life in the universe—announced today a new collaboration between Breakthrough Listen and the VERITAS Collaboration in the search for technosignatures, signs of technology developed by intelligent life beyond the Earth. Joining Listen’s ongoing radio frequency survey and spectroscopic optical laser survey, VERITAS (the Very Energetic Radiation Imaging Telescope Array System) will search for…
Inside ‘Starshot’, the Audacious Plan To Shoot Tiny Ships To Alpha Centauri
“Starshot wants to build the world’s most powerful laser and aim it at the closest star. What could go wrong?” An anonymous reader quotes MIT’s Technology Review: In 2015, Philip Lubin, a cosmologist from the University of California, Santa Barbara, took the stage at the 100-Year Starship Symposium in Santa Clara. He outlined his plan to build a laser so powerful…
Researchers Have Eliminated HIV In Mice For the First Time
pgmrdlm shares a report from USA Today: Researchers say they’ve successfully eliminated HIV from the DNA of infected mice for the first time, bringing them one step closer to curing the virus in humans. Scientists from Temple University and the University of Nebraska Medical Center were able to eliminate the virus using a combination of gene-editing technology and a slow-release antiviral…
The Pentagon Has a Laser That Can Identify People From a Distance By Their Heartbeat
An anonymous reader quotes a report from MIT Technology Review: A new device, developed for the Pentagon after U.S. Special Forces requested it, can identify people without seeing their face: instead it detects their unique cardiac signature with an infrared laser. While it works at 200 meters (219 yards), longer distances could be possible with a better laser. “I don’t want…
New kind of light is a vortex beam that twists faster as it moves
A laser beam can be twisted and move like a vortex, and for the first time researchers have made one that has different twists along the length of the beam Source: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2207852-new-kind-of-light-is-a-vortex-beam-that-twists-faster-as-it-moves/?utm_campaign=RSS%7CNSNS&utm_source=NSNS&utm_medium=RSS&utm_content=home…