4 ms·

does a laser make a bright spot on the airplane that is ?visible to the person back on the ground?

• Nextgrid 5y ago
  No idea, I haven't tried it (and not planning to) but I can understand the curiosity to find out.
• jokoon 5y ago
  No, for several reasons: The ray is not "straight", it has a slight angle, meaning the dot is larger and larger when distance increases, so it's less luminous (but still very luminous, enough to blind you temporarily). It's also the reason why it has way more probability to "hit" somebody's eye. You can spot an airplane, but you can't really see secondary light source on it, it's just too far away. Even if a laser is a lot of light, the dot is not emitting enough for the naked eye to see any difference. The light from a laser is directed, meaning all its photons goes in one direction, hence why it will blind an eye. But when it hits a surface, the photons bounce in all directions, and thus those secondary photons land in your eye in lower quantity because they're spread.