U.Alabama-Huntsville researchers working on laser system to deflect asteroid on collision path with Earth (Forwarded)
- From: Andrew Yee <ayee@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 21 Feb 2007 16:33:47 GMT
Office of News Services
University of Alabama-Huntsville
For more information:
Ray Garner, (256) 824-6397
2/20/2007
UAH researchers working on laser system to deflect asteroid on collision
path with Earth
A team of scientists and engineers at The University of Alabama in
Huntsville (UAH) are conducting research that could one day save humanity
from asteroids threatening Earth.
UAH Laser Science and Engineering Group (LSEG), headed by Dr. Richard
Fork, professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, is conducting
research into characterizing and deflecting asteroids that may endanger
Earth.
It sounds like science fiction, but Fork, who has a doctorate from
Massachusetts Institute of Technology and more than 40 years of experience
working with lasers, said someday it could be possible to locate a laser
in space or on the moon to look at the properties of asteroids and perhaps
alter their trajectories away from Earth.
The research has students excited about using lasers for space-related
applications. Graduate student Blake Anderton wrote his master's thesis on
"Application of Mode-locked lasers to asteroid characterization and
mitigation." Undergraduate Gordon Aiken won a prize at a recent student
conference for his poster and presentation "Space positioned LIDAR system
for characterization and mitigation of Near Earth Objects." And members of
the group are building a laser system "that is the grandfather of the
laser that will push the asteroids," Fork said.
Anderton said his thesis discusses "a way to look at asteroids at maximum
range, which means early detection." According to his calculations, an
asteroid could be characterized up to 1 AU away (1.5 x 10 to the 11
meters). Arecibo and other radar observatories can only detect objects up
to 0.1 AU away, so in theory a laser would represent a vast improvement
over radar.
Anderton, who grew up on a farm in Moulton, Ala., is an engineer at
Raytheon Corp. in Huntsville. He said the project was a good one for him
at this point in his career because of his interests in optical and laser
physics. At Raytheon he's involved in radar work for the National Missile
Defense radar systems, but he's poised to move into optical and laser
physics work, so the masters degree in electrical and computer engineering
with an emphasis on optics helped him prepare for his next job assignment.
The thesis was a stepping stone that "opened doors" for him at his job, he
said. But Anderton added he has a personal interest in the asteroid
mitigation problem.
"We only have one Earth and you don't want to lose it."
Anderton shared a LSEG office with undergraduate Gordon Aiken. The two
students talked about their interests. The result of their collaboration
is a sharing of knowledge in their academic research pursuits.
Aiken started out in mechanical engineering, then transferred to optical
engineering when he discovered that UAH is one of just a few colleges in
the U.S. with an undergraduate program in optical engineering.
When Fork spoke of his research to one of Aiken's engineering classes,
Aiken expressed interest and landed a REU grant (Research Experience for
Undergraduates) for the summer of 2006.
At the end of the REU, Aiken made a presentation on what he'd learned, and
Dr. Vernhard Vogler, of UAH's Chemistry Department, suggested Aiken submit
his poster to a new annual UAH student research conference, held last
year.
Aiken won the prize for best undergraduate poster and presentation.
"I really like optics. I wanted to get into the field of working with
lasers," said the sophomore, who served as a medic in the Army before
coming to UAH. "The school has been amazing for me ... If you show
interest, they're going to find something for you to do. This has all
fallen into place for me." Putting graduate students together with
undergraduates is a great idea, he noted.
"It's a good mixture of talent."
Fork said the current research relates back to work he performed in the
mid-1980s, when he and other researchers at AT&T Bell Laboratories
developed the first femtosecond lasers. They used one of the lasers to
ablate material by ultra-intense laser pulses with femtosecond time
resolution ("Femtosecond imaging of melting and evaporation at a photo
excited silicon surface," M. C. Downer, R.L. Fork and C.V. Shank, Journal
of the Optical Society of America B2,595-599 (1985)).
"The laser we are developing now is also being developed to ablate
materials," Fork said, but the device would be "a substantial distance"
from the target. The system includes an argon laser, a mode-locked
Ti-sapphire oscillator, a regenerative Ti-sapphire amplifier, a doubled
neodymium-yag pulsed laser and helium-neon line-up lasers, according to
Dr. Fork.
The short-term goal of the work is "to amplify femtosecond pulses to high
peak power at high average power for remote sensing," using unique
features associated with the high pulse intensity, Fork said. The work is
funded by the U.S. Army and involves a local company that employs several
of Fork's former students. The research does not concern characterizing or
deflecting asteroids, but Fork sees a connection.
"My vision is that this system is the progenitor of the laser that could
characterize and deflect asteroids," he said. (UAH)
IMAGE CAPTION:
[http://uahnews.uah.edu/newsImages/optics1407.jpg (66KB)]
UAH students Dane Phillips (foreground) and Gordon Aiken perform optics
research in a campus laboratory. Phillips is a doctoral student while
Aiken is an undergraduate working on his optical engineering degree.
.
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