• Question: could we find new planets with lasers?

    Asked by confuddled213 to Mike, Pip, Tianfu, Tim, Tom on 28 Jun 2012.
    • Photo: Tom Lister

      Tom Lister answered on 28 Jun 2012:

      That may be difficult because of the distances involved – perhaps we could look for more moons around Saturn or Jupiter?

    • Photo: Tim Stephens

      Tim Stephens answered on 28 Jun 2012:

      YEah. Even the best laser beam diverges (spreads out) as it travels through space. Once you start to try and shine the beam into space, the distances are so large that it’ll become so large that it’s light is very faint. Then, once it hits something the light that is scattered will go in all directions – it won’t come straight back to earth – so there’s very little chance of being able to detect it.

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