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Laser beam to guide lightning
January 25 , 2023
670 days
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- Scientists have used a laser beam to guide lightning for the first time.
- The technique will help protect against deadly bolts-and one day maybe even trigger them.
- Lightning strikes between 40-120 times a second worldwide.
- It is killing more than 4,000 people and causing billions of dollars’ worth of damage every year.
- Lightning is a discharge of static electricity that has built up in storm clouds, or between clouds and the ground.
- The laser beam creates plasma, in which charged ions and electrons heat the air.
- The air becomes "partially conductive, and therefore a path preferred by the lightning,"
- This means that, in theory, this technique could be used not just to drive lightning away, but also to help steer the strike.
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