h a l f b a k e r yBirth of a Notion.
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A satellite housing an optical pumped (powered) laser orbits as close to the sun as practical. The satellite is basically a very large laser tube on the order of 100 meters long and 20 meters in diameter. A linear parabolic reflector runs the length of the tube focusing the sunlight in to the tube. The
outer edge of the reflector may be fitted with solar sails to help the satellite stay on station. The laser tube will be filled with a mixture of various gases to produce a beam at a frequency that will induce the plasma in the suns corona to emit photons coherent to the initiating beam. The initiating beam would be fired in pulses, tangent to the sun passing through thousands of miles the stars super charged atmosphere. In theory the laser will cause the plasma to emit an immense hail of coherent photons. By using very short pulses it should be possible to produce a short high quality burst. Similar to how laser can now be used to image internal organs
Possible uses for the laser would be illuminating distant objects like the ort cloud, warming Mars, as a beacon to signal our presence to ET’s, pushing solar sail probes.
The system I envisioned originally used the sun’s corona, as a single pass amplifier a variation would be to place second mirror satellite in orbit creating a huge laser cavity. The problem with this would be the highly turbulent atmosphere could distort the beam preventing the lasers cavity from working. A work around would be to use an active mirror system. That is if a material that can with stand this energy level could be created.
AMPLIFIED SPONTANEOUS EMISSION
http://home.achille...sary/ase/index.html
[duroncrush, Oct 04 2004, last modified Oct 06 2004]
SCIENTISTS DISCOVER FIRST NATURAL LASER IN SPACE
http://home.achille...ot/news/MWC349.html
[duroncrush, Oct 04 2004, last modified Oct 06 2004]
what is the Sun made of?
http://www.sunblock.../PYoung/clue_4.html
Here are some images obtained with SOHO. They show the the ultraviolet light from different elements at different temperature. [duroncrush, Oct 04 2004, last modified Oct 06 2004]
The Three-Body Problem
https://en.wikipedi...ody_Problem_(novel)
This idea reminded me of this novel, in which a radio (not light) signal is amplified (once, not multiple times like a laser) using the lower layers of the Sun (not the corona). [notexactly, Apr 22 2018]
"User the solar corona as a laser (maser) pump amplifier"
http://seti-analter...ser-maser-pump.html
Mentioned in my anno [notexactly, Aug 26 2019]
Archived copy of above-linked "Amplified Spontaneous Emission (ASE)"/"What are Laser Stars?"
https://web.archive...sary/ase/index.html
[notexactly, Aug 26 2019]
Archived copy of above-linked "Scientists Discover First Natural Laser in Space"/"MWC 349, Natural Infra Red Laser Star"
https://web.archive...ot/news/MWC349.html
[notexactly, Aug 26 2019]
Archived copy of above-linked "So what is the Sun made of?"
https://web.archive.../PYoung/clue_4.html
There are much better places to look at SOHO images [notexactly, Aug 26 2019]
Larry Niven did something similar in one of the Ringworld books ...
https://en.wikipedi...Ringworld_Engineers
I'm not certain if the technique and result were the same ... [normzone, Aug 26 2019]
Wikipedia: Gas dynamic laser
https://en.wikipedi...i/Gas_dynamic_laser
Mentioned in my anno. The type of laser I think the solar coronal laser proposal was [notexactly, Aug 28 2019]
[link]
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Welcome the HB, [duroncrush]. Interesting first effort. I would like to learn more about the suns corona and how it could be influenced. If you have links, please link them below your idea. |
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Hmm, not sure how possible this is. Maybe someone who has had more than one lecture on the subject of lasers can have a go? |
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My guess is that if you could do it you wouldn't be able to aim the resulting light. |
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If I understand you correctly the corona would be used as the amplifier medium. That would require two mirrors facing each other with the corona in between. Two satellites with 30 degree (?) offset in the same orbit could handle that. But is the corona suitable as an amplifying medium? I doubt it, otherwise it would excite itself. |
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At least til it goes blind. |
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Yup, without two satellites you will only get one-pass amplification of the light. Are there any astrophysicists who could work out how often you could have two solar-orbiting satellites in a useful alignment? |
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im no astrophysiolocologist but im gonna go with 8 and a half north by northwest and four hundred paces to rigel to compensate for the curveture of space time and the gradual expansion of the cosmoverse |
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How many satellites would be necessary to maintain a line of sight around the entire sun? |
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<singing>my, my, my, my, my corona, be de dup de de dup,be de my, my, my, my, my wo woah</singing> |
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Doubful it would be self exciting. So basically you are just creating a giant mirror to beam energy in the form of light to someother location. As for the number, probably in the low hundredes for completle coverage. |
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Better idea would be to park it in a Legrange orbit and have it collect light from mirrors orbiting the sun, which would peroidically come in and out of sight. This has been discused as a possible means of power generation, 'beaming' energy across space. |
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Didn't they do something like this in an episode of Voyager? I seem to recall they shot phasers thru the suns corona, and made it flare up and toast a Borg ship. |
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I figure the biggest problem would actually just keeping the damn thing cool. How do you propose to do that? In a complete vacuum there's nothing to draw the heat off, it just has to radiate away as fast as it is able, which most certainly wouldn't be fast enough. |
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Certainly I think the idea is possible, because you have all the energy you need to drive whatever motors are needed to pump fluid through the cooling system, but it would have to be both really damned reliable and very efficient. The two seldom meet, I've noticed. |
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Could this be used to melt a hole through the earth so we can have one of those cool gravity elevators?? |
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Hey! It's only funny until somebody loses an eye. |
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Why do you need to "pulse" the sun to light up anything. Focused mirrors of mylar would be able to light up distant objects with pinpoit accuracy. Drive solar sails too. |
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I give this a point because it sounds way smarter than me. PLUS, the sun is a laser.....hows that work again? |
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Reading this again, it reminded me of something I think I read about in the last year or so:
a proposal to do this for a purpose I don't recall. What I do remember is a diagram showing
two satellites above half of the Sun, with a green (?) laser beam between them. But I could
be misremembering the details of that. I haven't been able to refind it yet. |
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I did, however, find something about lasing or masing occurring naturally in solar flares:
[link]. (Note that the actual blog post starts a screen or two down, at the mint-green
heading, after the excessively long introduction to the blog.) |
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Reading this again today, I recall what I was thinking but
forgot to mention the other day: I think it was mentioned
that it was a gas dynamic laser [link], the same type of laser
that more commonly uses jet engine exhaust as its lasing
medium. I'll try to search for it again now after having
remembered that aspect. |
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Edit a bit later: Nope, nothing yet. Oh, I forgot that link. |
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