Natural laser on mars

[brodaglia]

https://www.academia.edu/104653659/Discovery_of_Natural_Gain_Amplification_in_the_10_Micrometer_Carbon_Dioxide_Laser_Bands_on_Mars_A_Natural_Laser

[laszlo]

It won't let me download it. Synopsis, please?

[brodaglia]

https://laserstars.org/history/mars.html

[jstrotha0975]

Can somebody explain this to me please, I'm not a scientist.

[Sam Ho]

First off, this isn't a new discovery.  The article in the original post is from 1981.

Lasers begin with a population inversion, where something is stuck in a high-energy state.  When light of that same energy hits the material, it stimulates more light to be emitted, matching the original incoming light.  Usually, there are mirrors on the ends of the laser so that the light bounces back and forth inside the laser, getting stronger each time, with some of it allowed to escape as the beam output.

On Mars, sunlight is creating a population inversion in the carbon dioxide atmosphere.  The Martian atmosphere isn't very dense, and there are no mirrors at the ends, so there isn't a whole lot of amplification.  On the positive side, the laser is very long.  Put it all together, and the gain is around 10%.  The light associated with carbon dioxide lasers is in the infrared.

On Earth, carbon dioxide lasers (at much higher pressures, and with mirrors) can run at very high power, and are used for industrial cutting, among other things.  Not the Martian one, obviously.