Now, in a study published in the journal Nature Photonics, they describe using a laser beam — shot from the top of a Swiss mountain — to guide a lightning bolt for more than 50 metres.

For the first time, scientists were able to show they can bend lightning from a storm with a laser. The project, 20 years in the making, required a super powerful laser to be shot into the sky.

“We found, from the first laser lightning event, that the discharge could follow the beam for almost 60 m (197 ft) before reaching the tower, thus increasing the radius of the protection surface ...

This 3-D reconstruction models a lightning strike captured by high-speed cameras in July 2021. It shows the moment that the lightning bolt hit a metal rod atop a tower, its path guided through the ...

Creating such a powerful laser has taken time, though, and several experiments since the 1990s have failed to control the lightning as scientists hoped. This natural phenomenon has continued to ...

This explains why a team of researchers ended up in the Swiss Alps, setting up a high-powered laser near the base of the Säntis large telecommunications tower, which usually gets hit by lightning ...

Over at Picatinny Arsenal, the research and development facility and proving ground for the U.S. Army's weaponry, engineers are developing a device that shoots lighting bolts along a laser beam to ...

For example, while Franklin rods are “on duty” 24/7, should a lightning bolt strike, laser lightning rods would need to be fired up in anticipation of a bolt; ...

Lightning rod. According to the study, the physicists were able to successfully get the lightning to follow the high-powered laser beam, proving the concept a success.

When a bright red lightning bolt appeared on Lady Gaga's face during her David Bowie tribute at the Grammys last year, ... Motion-tracking projector puts a laser show on moving faces.

The original O.MG Cables were demoed at the Def Con hacking conference in 2019. They were built by hand from regular Lightning cables, and they act just like you would expect a Lightning cable to act.

The US army has successfully tested a laser device that shoots out 50 billion watt-powered bolts of lightning. "We never got tired of the lightning bolts zapping our simulated targets," admitted ...