Question: Is there such a thing as a natural laser?

Ceri Brenner answered on 16 Jun 2011:

hmmmm this is an interesting question. for something to be a laser, it needs to emit a very narrow wavelength, coherent source of light and the only way i know of, on earth, to produce such a source would be through stimulated emission from a lasing material, so in this respect it’s not natural because we’ve made it stimulate light. Here’s a bit of trivia for you (and is quite useful in pub quizzes i’ve found), laser stands for Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation so always think of that if you’re wondering if something is a laser. However, there has been some talk (and scientific papers) about ‘natural laser emission’ from the atmospheres of mars (i think). Apparently the atmosphere contains a gas that emits laser light when it absorbs sun light. We’ve found lots of lasing materials here on earth but I guess it’s quite rare for laser light to be produced unless you deliberately shine light onto it.

p.s. just found this: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0019103583901070 enjoy!