NASA’s in the tractor beam chase too – in this hypothetical case, a rover is suckin’ in atmospheric particles for analysis using lasers. Mmmmm… particles!
Image: NASA
OK, so don’t go and open your interplanetary tow-truck service just yet. But this is still some pretty cool tech. The lab-coated humanoids at Scotland’s University of St Andrews (pretty sure Scotty’s lineage was in on this) and the Institute of Scientific Instruments in the Czech Republic have demonstrated tractor-beamish behavior on a micro scale using, yes, a beam of light.
The article, over at the usually excellent studentnewsie.com describes the beam as having a “negative light force” with, unfortunately, no explanation. I’m fairly well read in a lazy-science-news-scanner sort of way, but I’ve never come across this totally trekked out “negative light force.” I do, however, sure as hell like the sound of it.
Early applications might include medical use, shoving molecules or organelles around inside cells while said cells are still in a patient’s body. Which, I gotta say, sounds a lot like the mag-genis tissue repair device my exoveterinarian heroine Zenn Scarlett employs when she reconstructs the badly damaged body of a pet that’s been badly mauled in an accident. Yeah, I’m prescient that way, what can I say?
Anyway very intriguing stuff going on in the sci-fi-future-is-here-and-wants-to-say-hi category. So… next? Get to work on that Alcubierrian warp drive already! Thank you. Thank you very much.