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An earth-to-space optical link would still suffer from diffraction, right? As I understand it, this is also the same reason why it's dangerous to point laser po
by cbhl 9y ago
An earth-to-space optical link would still suffer from diffraction, right? As I understand it, this is also the same reason why it's dangerous to point laser pointers at airplanes.
- dreamcompiler 9y agoIt's dangerous to point lasers at airplanes because laser light doesn't decrease as 1-over-r-squared. Which means the human pilot can be temporarily blinded by the beam, even many miles from the source. It has nothing to do with diffraction.
- cbhl 9y agoThanks for that explanation!
- jakobegger 9y agoThis is incorrect. Laser beams are only "straight" at short range. At long range, laser beam intensity does decrease as 1/r^2. The reason for that is that the diameter of the laser beam increases due to diffraction. If you want to know why, I recommend reading about Gaussian beams and Rayleigh Range.
- tinus_hn 9y agoIt’s dangerous to point lasers at planes because if you hit the window the light scatters and illuminates the complete window, blinding the pilot. There are videos on YouTube if you want to see what it looks like. It isn’t like you’re pointing directly into the pilots eye, the chances of that are rather slim.