A Drought? No Worries, Here’s a Laser Pointer
Forget rain dancing, we’ve now got laser dancing… er I mean a rain laser. That’s correct. A laser that creates rainfall, or close to it. Man made rain has been achieved before with cloud seeding, but not to such futuristic lengths as shooting a powerful laser into the sky, a technique known as ‘laser-assisted water condensation’. The aim is of the laser is to try to control where and when it rains in a location that has a suitable amount of humidity. Read how it works after the break.
The idea is cool, but the process seems to be a little on the under-developed side – research showed that after 133 hours of laser firing, the lasers were able to then create nitric acid particles in the air that binds water particles to create droplets, while also preventing them from re-evaporating. After a few seconds, these droplets grow into substantial drops that are a few thousandth of a millimeter in diameter. This size happens to be big enough for researches to clap and cheer about and continue on their research, but sadly not big enough to match mother nature and be constituted as actual rain. These tests were carried out at the banks of Rhône, near lake Genava in Switzerland with a mobile laser laboratory about the size of a small garage. It’s only a matter of time before an evil villain is able to steal a worthy enough rain machine and… threaten to over water a patch of flowers.
via ubergizmo
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