Can a laser occur naturally in space?

Answer 1

Yes, but it is not a common happening. There are some natural sources of laser radiation, and most of the emissions are observed at "graze angle" through a planet's atmosphere. If a planet has a thin enough atmosphere and the gas mixture is right, it can be "pumped" to the proper energy level by sunlight to produce weak laser radiation, usually in the infrared frequencies.

In deep space a similar thing can be observed, but it is rare. Large, thin clouds of gas that are near an energetic star can sometimes lase. The situation where this can occur is not a stable one, as the clouds of gas tend to blow away in a short period of time.

So the conditions needed are a) a thin cloud of the proper as mixture, often carbon dioxide and nitrogen, b) close proximity to a star that can energize the cloud, and c) being in the right place to observe the emitted laser radiation.

As one answer points out, natural microwave "lasing" also occurs, and it is far more common than optical lasing.

Answer 2

The stone which amplifies the light can. But having it arranged in such a way to act as a laser is highly unlikely.

Take for example the first laser ever made.... which was a ruby laser. A ruby is just an alumina-silicate rock (all over the place) with a bit of chromium. The stones which amplifies the light and undergo population inversion can occur easily is space. And I bet it happens quite often. However, the setup for a laser requires much more.

Answer 3

Astronomical masers (microwave lasers) are observed all the time. The first ones were discovered and identified as such in the late 60's. Visible wavelenght lasers; not that I know of.

To have stimulated emission, all you need is a population inversion (where the energy state of a bunch of gas is pumped beyond where typical thermodynamic equilibrium would leave it, and it is stable there over the light travel time across the masing/lasing gas.)

I honestly don't know a lot about astronomical masers, except that they look ridiculously bright and have been great markers for tracing orbital velocities in accretion disks around supermassive black holes. I think they are also found around some late-type stars. I should read this article about them to educate myself:

http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-bib_query?bibcode=1992ARA%26A..30...75E&db_key=AST&data_type=HTML&format=&high=4498c914a225360

I can take a hand waving attempt to explain why we don't see astronomical lasers: the lifetimes of higher energy transitions in atoms tend to be quite short (as opposed to the low energy rotational transitions in molecules). It is much harder to sustain a suitable population inversion due to collisions at the typical densities found in the ISM. At lower densities, there is too much interaction with radiation to sustain inversions over a large enough volume to lase.

Hah! That was general enough I bet the right reasoning is in there someplace!

Answer 4

Probably not. A laser requires a precise arrangement of atoms (usually gasses) in a small chamber spaced just so to provide the amplification necessary and to make the light completely in-phase.

Answer 5

Yes! Among astro-scientists types it is believed that natural laser/maser emissions can occur by waves of light or particle emissions passing through gas clouds/nebula which contain certain mixtures of helium, argon and possibly others we haven't guessed yet.

Answer 6

No dear, i wont.