Laser precision added to search for new Earths

404132862 — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 14:46:48 -0400

Harvard scientists have unveiled a new laser-measuring device that they say will provide a critical advance in the resolution of current planet-finding techniques, making the discovery of Earth-sized planets possible.

The discovery of planets outside of our solar system, called “exoplanets,” is one of the hottest fields in astronomy and holds great promise to increase our understanding of Earth’s solar system and of how life first took hold on this planet.

Harvard researchers stop, restart, light

70652986 — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 05:04:31 -0400

Albert Einstein theorized that light cannot travel faster than 186,282 miles per second. But he never said it couldn't go slower. Lene Hau, a physics professor in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Harvard University, says Einstein would "probably be stunned" at the results of her recent experiments. Working in her laboratory at the Rowland Institute for Science, she and her colleagues slowed light 20 million-fold in 1999, to an incredible 38 miles an hour. They did it by passing a beam of light through a small cloud of atoms cooled to temperatures a billion times colder than those in the spaces between stars. Just recently, they were able to stop light completely. "In this odd state, light takes on a more human dimension; you can almost touch it," Hau says.

all Ronald Walsworth stories

Laser precision added to search for new Earths

Harvard researchers stop, restart, light