I Was hanging out with my friends joking around with our paintball guns and one of my friends happen to have a lazer scope attached to his gun i ask to see it i was messing with and i notice it reached from my backyard to the house across the street i also read that a lazer is a device that emits light through a specific mechanism and it was already dark enough to see the moon i pointed the lazer towards the moon and thought to myself if it was possible that the lazer could of reached that far?
2007-07-02 10:02:38 · 12 answers · asked by Anonymous in Science & Mathematics ➔ Astronomy & Space
As I understand it, this has already been done. Apollo 11 placed a retroflector up there and they bounced a laser off the retroflector and measured the time it took for the round trip, thus giving a very, very accurate measurement of the distance from the earth to the moon. The return beam was detected on August 1st, 1969 at Lick Observatory in California.
I don't know if the beam from a small laser like a paintball gun would be detectable by any means we have since that type of laser is usually a laser diode and the beam isn't usually all that well collimated which means it spreads out more than a really high quality laser would.
2007-07-02 10:16:04 · answer #1 · answered by yumadome 2 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Likely, a pencil-laser doesn't have the power to punch through the atmosphere's distortions accurately to reach the moon, although if you were aiming correctly, a few photons would've made it.
Scientists shoot lasers at the moon to bounce off reflectors left by the Apollo astronauts, and by timing the shot/bounce loop, they can tell to within a few tenths of an inch how far away the moon is.
Lasers stay pencil-thin for a long time, but they finally do end up spreading; even a pencil-thin, high energy beam used by astonomers will spread to cover a 1/2 mile diameter area on the moon.
2007-07-02 17:56:36 · answer #2 · answered by quantumclaustrophobe 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
There is little doubt that some of the photons from your laser would have reached the moon.
However, whether someone on the moon could have detected it (if someone was there) depends on the energy of the laser.
As the previous respondant pointed out, lasers are reflected off the moon all the time - gives a precise indication of the moon's distance.
2007-07-02 17:11:17 · answer #3 · answered by nick s 6 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Regarding the power of the laser. The pointer on your friend's scope is nowhere near powerful enough to reach the moon, or, in fact, any high flying aircraft. The atmospher will diffuse the light. As aircraft come down on their landing approches, however, the laser may be strong enough to distract a pilot. This practice is against the law, and, if caught, the perpretrator faces hard jail time.
2007-07-02 17:13:08 · answer #4 · answered by Vince M 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
A photon of laser light has a very very low probability of making it to the moon, but it is possible. So if you have a laser of great intensity (lots and lots of photons), you can hit the moon.
They have shined lasers to bounce off of corner reflectors left by astronauts on the moon. If you shine a strong enough laser, a few photons can make it through our atmosphere to the moon and all the way back again.
2007-07-02 17:10:36 · answer #5 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋
Yes
But it needs to be a powerful enough laser.
Currently the APOLLO LLR program uses lasers and the retro-reflectors left on the moon to measure the distance between the earth and the moon. with the hundreds of thousands of photons sent, sometimes they are lucky to receive 5000
Depending on the Power and focus of your laser it is quite possible that some photons actually do reach the moon. But with scattering in the atmosphere and the diffusion of the beam, very few photons would make it and it would be very difficult to detect
2007-07-02 17:29:36 · answer #6 · answered by Kimball K 2 · 2⤊ 0⤋
The kind of laser your friend was using was not powerful enough to reach the moon, but there are definitely some that are.
2007-07-02 17:10:27 · answer #7 · answered by TG 7 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Depends on the power of the laser, but scientists do this all of the time. Apollo astronauts left laser reflecting mirrors on the surface of the moon just for this purpose.
2007-07-02 17:07:39 · answer #8 · answered by Randy G 7 · 3⤊ 0⤋
Certainly a few photons would have made it. Could a hypothetical person or instrument on the moon have detected your laser? That is rather doubtful.
2007-07-02 17:13:20 · answer #9 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 1⤋
If there were no clouds, yes, a LASER can be shot at the moon. I have done it at university in the 1960's.
2007-07-02 17:10:36 · answer #10 · answered by science teacher 7 · 1⤊ 0⤋