Gizmorama - April 23, 2014

Good Morning,

When you read, "Giant lasers could control the weather", can you think of anything but that that sounds like the plan of a James Bond villain? It sounds as silly as it does interesting.

Learn about this interesting story and more from the scientific community in today's issue.

Until Next Time,
Erin

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*-- Giant lasers could control the weather --*
ORLANDO, Fla. (UPI) - Zeus, God of the Sky, may be out of work, as scientists at the University of Central Florida believe they've developed a technique -- which involves pointing a high powered laser at the sky -- to induce clouds to drop rain and hurl thunderbolts. Scientists have known that water condensation and lightning activity in storm clouds are associated with large amounts of static charged particles. In theory, stimulating those particles with a laser is the key to harnessing Zeus-like powers. The hard part, scientists say, is creating a laser beam with the right combination of range, precision and strength. "When a laser beam becomes intense enough, it behaves differently than usual -- it collapses inward on itself," explained Matthew Mills, a graduate student in the UCF Center for Research and Education in Optics and Lasers. "The collapse becomes so intense that electrons in the air's oxygen and nitrogen are ripped off creating plasma -- basically a soup of electrons." But students at UCF's College of Optics & Photonics have collaborated with researchers at the University of Arizona to create a "dressed laser" that they think might be up for the challenge of controlling the weather. The dressed laser is a high-power laser beam surrounded by a second beam, which acts as a refueling agent, sustaining the strength and accuracy of the central beam over longer distances. "Since we have control over the length of a filament with our method, one could seed the conditions needed for a rainstorm from afar," said Mills. "Ultimately, you could artificially control the rain and lightning over a large expanse with such ideas." The students recently published their research findings in the journal Nature Photonics. Their efforts were supported by a $7.5 million grant from the Department of Defense.


*-- NASA's LADEE probe purposefully crashes into the moon --*
MOFFETT FIELD, Calif. (UPI) - Self-destruction, or self-sabotage, is usually regarded with disdain in society. But if you're a NASA spacecraft, self-sacrifice is called science. Last night, NASA's lunar probe LADEE transmitted its last pieces of imagery and bid sweet goodnight to its creators, smashing into the surface of the moon. It's a sad ending, but one that was inevitable, as LADEE's low-altitude orbit was bound to become unstable. LADEE, the Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer, was launched in September of last year, and in its short time orbiting the moon, it captured a plethora of new information about Earth's nearest celestial neighbor. The probe gathered detailed data on the structure and composition of the thin lunar atmosphere, and became the first spacecraft to orbit the moon over 100 times at such a low altitude. But that low orbit finally became compromised last night, and LADEE tumbled out of it -- yet another victim of gravity. "At the time of impact, LADEE was traveling at a speed of 3,600 miles per hour -- about three times the speed of a high-powered rifle bullet," said Rick Elphic, LADEE project scientist at Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California. "There's nothing gentle about impact at these speeds -- it's just a question of whether LADEE made a localized craterlet on a hillside or scattered debris across a flat area. It will be interesting to see what kind of feature LADEE has created." Still, LADEE will be remembered for its scientific accomplishments, not its ill fate. While in orbit, the probe became the first spacecraft to rely entirely on laser-based communication, instead of radio waves. Using lasers, LADEE was able to beam back images to its command center and enable record-breaking download speeds. Science or no science, it has to be painful any time a $280 million piece of equipment disintegrates in several hundred degree heat. "It's bittersweet knowing we have received the final transmission from the LADEE spacecraft after spending years building it in-house at Ames, and then being in constant contact as it circled the moon for the last several months," said Butler Hine, LADEE project manager at Ames.

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