A laser is being developed in Europe that will
have the power to rip apart the vacuum of space! So what are they going to do
with it?
Plans are currently being drawn up for the Extreme Light
Infrastructure (ELI). The goal for the ELI is to build the most powerful lasers
ever to exist—over 10 times as powerful as any existing laser.
With
current plans for lasers in Hungary, Romania, and the Czech Republic, the first
stages of the project look to be completed in 2017. The group behind the ELI
want to make these lasers available to the international scientific community
to perform advanced physics experiments.
Their
end goal involves developing a 200 petawatt laser that will have the power to
pull apart the vacuum of space! This laser will be created by combining the
beams of 10 smaller lasers—each more powerful that any currently in existence.
At
energy levels as high as 200 petawatts, the usual laws of physics will start to
break down, giving scientists a glimpse into the origins of our universe.
