Trees burn during the Mosquito Fire on September 14 in Foresthill, California. The Laser Lightning Rod, as it is called by members of the European consortium that developed it, was able to divert four lightning strikes. Researchers activated the laser during the summer of 2021 for more than six hours across thunderstorm events between June and September.

Lightning strikes the tower about 100 times a year. Previous research has supported the idea that laser pulses could influence the trajectory of lightning strikes, but that work had only been carried out inside a lab.Ī laser the size of a large car was installed near a telecommunications tower on the summit of Mount Säntis in northeastern Switzerland.

Scientists decided to test if a laser beam pointed at the sky could act like one big virtual and movable lightning rod. Lightning causes up to 24,000 deaths a year and can cause power cuts, forest fires and damage infrastructure, according to a study detailing the findings published Monday in the journal Nature Photonics. Since the height of lightning rods isn’t infinite, broad ranges such as airports, launchpads, power stations, wind farms and nuclear power plants pose a challenge. Lightning in the 'cataclysmic' Tonga volcano eruption shattered 'all records' Half of all the lightning in the world was concentrated around this volcano at the eruption's peak. Over the course of just 6 hours, the Tongan volcano triggered nearly 400,000 lightning events.

Laser beem 3 wide at 100 feet