{"id":52,"date":"2007-02-28T22:37:05","date_gmt":"2007-03-01T05:37:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/?p=52"},"modified":"2017-04-16T22:27:53","modified_gmt":"2017-04-17T05:27:53","slug":"lasers-to-detect-and-deflect-asteroids","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2007\/02\/lasers-to-detect-and-deflect-asteroids","title":{"rendered":"Lasers to detect and deflect asteroids"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.uah.edu\/News\/newsread.php?newsID=664\">Graduate student (University of Alabama Huntsville) Blake Anderton wrote his master\u2019s thesis on \u201cApplication of Mode-locked lasers to asteroid characterization and mitigation.\u201d<\/a> Undergraduate Gordon Aiken won a prize at a recent student conference for his poster and presentation \u201cSpace positioned LIDAR system for characterization and mitigation of Near Earth Objects.\u201d And members of the group are building a laser system \u201cthat is the grandfather of the laser that will push the asteroids,\u201d Fork said.<\/p>\n<p>Anderton\u2019s mode locked lasers could characterize asteroids up to 1 AU away (1.5 \u00d7 10 to the 11 meters). Arecibo and other radar observatories can only detect objects up to 0.1 AU away, so in theory a laser would represent a vast improvement over radar.<\/p>\n<p><A href=\"http:\/\/www.uah.edu\/News\/newsImages\/Asteroidmitigation.ppt\">A one page powerpoint describes their asteroid detection and deflection approach<\/a> About 12 of the 1AU detection volumes (around the sun in the asteroid belt) would be needed to cover the main areas for near earth asteroids. <\/p>\n<p>40KW femtosecond lasers could deflect an asteroid the size of Apophis (320meters, would hit with 880 megaton force) given one year of illumination and an early start in the trajectory. <\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/ex\/asteroid.shield\">Asteroid shields are a project of the Lifeboat Foundation<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/advancednano.blogspot.com\/2007\/02\/use-67-kilowatt-solid-state-lasers-for.html\">There are 67 kilowatt solid state lasers and modular laser systems &amp; mirrors for reflecting lasers to achieve more laser power from smaller modules<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Graduate student (University of Alabama Huntsville) Blake Anderton wrote his master\u2019s thesis on \u201cApplication of Mode-locked lasers to asteroid characterization and mitigation.\u201d Undergraduate Gordon Aiken won a prize at a recent student conference for his poster and presentation \u201cSpace positioned LIDAR system for characterization and mitigation of Near Earth Objects.\u201d And members of the group [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36,14,12,7,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-52","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-asteroid-comet-impacts","category-defense","category-existential-risks","category-lifeboat","category-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":52041,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52\/revisions\/52041"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}