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How much watts would a laser beam from Mars have to be, in order to be detectable from Earth?
A typical laser pointer has a 5 milliwatt output. The most powerful laser weapon developed has a 100 kilowatt output.
Detectable by the best telescope in the world or in Earth orbit.
What's the minimum energy output a laser would have to be in order to be detected from Mars?
"Detectable" is a funny thing. If a 1 watt laser (for example) could not be detected with 1 hour of staring, it might be detectable with 10 hours. We can already detect signals carried by just a few 100 photons per second (Lunar Laser Ranging). At the typical distance to Mars, a laser there would have to send about 2.6 x 10^9 photons per second. That's only about 30 nanowatts.
On the other hand, at 20 nanowatts, the information rate would be less than 1 bit per second. The noise from the vibration of the laser (from winds and Mars quakes) would blur the signal so much, the laser would not be detectable any more. Better go up to 20 microwatts, and get about 30 bits per second. Still very slow.
When we bounced radar signals from Earth to Mars and back, we had to stare at Mars for about 30 minutes to detect the return signal.
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Filed under Pro Audio Equipment by on Apr 4th, 2010. Comment. 