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lasers

How Do You Fight Space Junk? With Lasers, Of Course!

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Earth space junk - Pixabay

Telescope operators figured out years ago how to make the stars stop twinkling. Now, a team of Australian scientists wants to use the same technology to track space junk and blast it out of space. The problem is Earth’s atmosphere: It’s uneven and distorts light passing from space to Earth, and Earth to space. That’s a problem, because the nice twinkly effect Earth’s atmosphere gives stars makes it difficult for ground-based telescopes to accurately observe the heavens. It’s also a problem for efforts to lower the risk of space junk, which threatens satellites and crewed spaceflight, as Live Science previously … Read more

SCIENCE: Flies With Frickin’ Laser Beams

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Robotic Fly

A new type of flying robot is so tiny and lightweight — it weighs about as much as a toothpick — it can perch on your finger. The little flitter is also capable of untethered flight and is powered by lasers. This is a big leap forward in the design of diminutive airborne bots, which are usually too small to support a power source and must trail a lifeline to a distant battery in order to fly, engineers who built the new robot announced in a statement. Their insect-inspired creation is dubbed RoboFly, and like its animal namesake, it sports … Read more

TECH: Want a Computer That’s a Million Times Faster?

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laser beam

A billion operations per second isn’t cool. Know what’s cool? A million billion operations per second. That’s the promise of a new computing technique that uses laser-light pulses to make a prototype of the fundamental unit of computing, called a bit, that could switch between its on and off, or “1” and “0” states, 1 quadrillion times per second. That’s about 1 million times faster than the bits in modern computers. Conventional computers (everything from your calculator to the smartphone or laptop you’re using to read this) think in terms of 1s and 0s. Everything they do, from solving math … Read more

News: Jets With Frickin’ Laser Beams Attached to Their Heads

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Jet With Laser

The U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory, or AFRL, said it’s on track to demonstrate a working laser weapon on a fighter jet by 2020. “It really is a national tipping point,” said Kelly Hammett, chief engineer for the AFRL’s directed energy directorate. “We see the technology evolving and maturing to the stage where it really can be used.” Arming larger planes with laser weapons has been possible for years. But the more difficult challenge is to create lasers small, accurate and powerful enough for fighter jets, Hammett said. The g-forces and vibrations of near supersonic speeds make that tough. Hammett … Read more