Seems like a gargantuan, if not infinite amount of energy would be required for this to occur
In: 10
Technically yes, it doesn’t just stop somewhere. However, the beam will widen and so lose strength.
A laser beam consist of photons. Space is almost empty but not completely empty. There are a few atoms per cubic meter in interstellar and intergalactic space. So your beam gets eroded when your photons collide with some atoms. Eventually photon count on your beam reaches to zero and you have no longer have a laser beam.
If it does not hit *anything*, yes.
It does not need a solid object, even a gas molecule could take out energy from a light wave.
That said, it actually takes no energy at all. It’s pretty easy. The conservation of energy says, that as long as you do not have any force counteract, there is not energy needed to continue whatever you are doing.
It won’t. Outer space isn’t a perfect vacuum. Some of the photons of light will hit stray bits of matter and scatter and be absorbed. Eventually, it won’t be much of a beam anymore. Light has a finite velocity so it cannot literally travel to infinity without an infinite amount of time.
It doesn’t take more energy to go further because it doesn’t use any up traveling. It’s just a clump of energy that happens to be moving in the same direction.
Same as how you can see stars for a super long distance, but it requires less energy because it’s only moving in a specific direction instead of everywhere.
It depends on the quality of the laser and if it was disrupted passing through the atmosphere, but yes in principle if a laser is shined into space it will continue at the same power until it is blocked by something.
If you were to remove Earth’s atmosphere and assuming that space is a perfect vacuum, which it is definitely not, and there were no obstruction to absorb the photons, then yes, it would continue to infinity. However, due to the inverse square law, the light would spread out over the vast distance to the point where it wouldn’t be detectable in a meaningful way. The individual photons coming from your laser would still continue though until something stopped it.
Not really, friction is what stops any object in your everyday experience from doing this. Push a ball in space and it will also move forever if it isn’t effected by another body (gravity or otherwise)
The photon doesn’t require energy to move, it requires energy (or mass] to STOP (or slow down, or be absorbed)
Imagine throwing a rock in empty space, it will go until it hits something with only the energy from your arm
The photon has no mass but it still follows the same principle
That isn’t just true for light.
If you were launched into space, and didn’t hit anything, you would also continue forever.
It doesn’t take energy to continue motion at constant speed.
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