What could a ‘relativistic camera’ capture on the way to Alpha Centauri?
ESA/NASA
An astronomer suggests an idea to piggyback on the ambitious Breakthrough Starshot project that aims to send nano spacecraft to Alpha Centauri at a major fraction of the speed of light.
LiDAR, was used to “redraw” the remains of the city, along the lower western slopes of the Suikerbosrand hills near Johannesburg.
Karim Sadr
Technology which located Mayan cities has been used to rediscover a southern African city from the 15th century.
Illustration of a gamma ray burst in space.
ESO/A. Roquette
New research may help us to look for messages from alien civilisations.
Example of nonlinear effect which can be observed in an optical fiber. All the colors of the rainbow are generated at the output while only one color is present at the entrance. We’re talking about supercontinuum.
To understand what is happening in an optical fibre, physicists can mimic a rupture of the flow of grains of light – the photons – thanks to a laser device.
Laser show.
MBDA
Star Wars fantasy or effective weapon system of the future?
Shutterstock
The Micius satellite will encrypt data using fundamental laws of physics rather than crackable codes.
Damian Evans/Cambodian Archaeological Lidar Initiative
Space lasers developed in the 1970s are being put to a brand new use.
Optical elements of the experimental setup allowing to obtain visible-spectrum laser pulses as short as 10 femtoseconds.
Courtesy of Dr. R. Borrego-Varillas and Prof. G. Cerullo, University Politecnico Milan (Italy)
The speed comparison between today’s technology and femtosecond spintronics is like comparing the fastest bullet train on Earth to the speed of light.
Nanobots at work.
Shutterstock
Explosive developments driving the tiniest engines in the world.
On take-off and landing, the slightest distraction could prove fatal.
as737700
No longer a toy: the industrial-grade lasers available online are a disaster in the making.
Wes Mountain/The Conversation
It’s taken centuries for our understanding of gravity to evolve to where it is today, culminating in the discovery of gravitational waves, as predicted by Albert Einstein a century ago.
Chuo Shinkansen is a Japanese mag-lev train.
Saruno Hirobano /wikimedia
Physicists have for decades tried and failed to make superconductors that work at room temperature. But we’re finally getting closer.
David James/Lucasfilm
It’s not easy – but we are moving in the right direction.
Mind those eyes.
Jayt74
Lasers are getting smaller, cheaper and better. It’s time we were far more careful with them.
Looks like a razor, cuts like a laser?
Skarp Technologies
Laser technology has come a long way, but not when it comes to razors.
Lasers, going where no one has gone before.
Damien Jemison/LLNL
Ultra-high powered lasers are the best and even cheapest approach to uncovering the secrets of physics, but with uses closer to home too.
Green lasers glowing within cells.
Matjaž Humar and Seok Hyun Yun
Using fluorescent dye, researchers figured out how to turn cells into lasers – with applications for cell tagging and tracking as well as medical diagnoses and therapies.
Machine to make anything.
Shutterstock
The most powerful laser ever built could help us produce a machine that can turn energy into matter.
The atmosphere of black holes contain a matter-antimatter plasma.
NASA/Flickr
An exotic plasma could help shed light on why the universe as we know it is made up of more matter than antimatter.
Light of every hue.
davidd
During these dark winter months, spare a thought for artificial lights. From strings of lights adding holiday cheer to artificial sunlamps alleviating seasonal affective disorder, they brighten our days…