Here's an old pic I took back in 2019, showing the UT4 telescope at ESO's Paranal Observatory shooting its four mighty lasers. These lasers excite sodium atoms high up in the atmosphere, creating fake "stars" that we monitor in real time to measure and correct atmospheric turbulence, thus yielding very sharp images.
The two faint smudges flanking UT4 are he Andromeda (left) and Triangulum (right) galaxies.
#astrodon #astronomy #astrophotography #science
Klaus Weidenbach likes this.
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BrianKrebs
in reply to Juan Carlos Muñoz • • •Juan Carlos Muñoz
in reply to BrianKrebs • • •Mycotropic
in reply to Juan Carlos Muñoz • • •@briankrebs
Not my field so dumb question but I follow an account on here that reports on near earth passes by space rocks. So, given these rocks might have frozen gasses in them, if a rock that could damage us, not a mountain but maybe a semi-truck sized meteor were on a collision course, could those lasers heat it at all, maybe causing a change in course due to outgassing? Something like that or would that sort of task be orders of magnitude outside the 20 watt range?
BrianKrebs
in reply to Mycotropic • • •Dan Riley
in reply to BrianKrebs • • •