[meteorite-list] laser tweezers

From: mark ford <markf_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Tue, 13 Mar 2007 16:31:09 -0000
Message-ID: <6CE3EEEFE92F4B4085B0E086B2941B31293C87_at_s-southern01.s-southern.com>

On the subject of sample return missions,

This is probably a dumb question (even by my standards) but would it not
be possible in theory to collect particles/material from space using
lasers?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_tweezers


I have heard of devices called 'laser tweezers' which can actually move
material around, since space is a vacuum, and if you had sufficiently
large lasers could they not be made to collect microscopic samples and
move them around, perhaps pull dust off the surface of an asteroid onto
to an orbiting space vehicle? Or similar?

Just a thought...

Mark Ford
Received on Tue 13 Mar 2007 12:31:09 PM PDT