This is not an illusion or some kind of sci-fi illustration. It's an actual laser beam, being shot at the eclipsed Moon on the 15 April 2014. The laser's target is the Apollo 15 retroreflector, which was left on the Moon by astronauts in 1971.
If I am not mistaken, they do this to accurately measure the distance between the moon and the earth. They send a laser beam, it bounces off one of the mirrors (they have several) and then it returns to earth. They use the amount of time for the beam to make the round trip to calculate the distance
Posted on Apr 28, 2014 by needyourlove
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I'm curious as to how much heat this laser produces if you were to shine it, say, on a piece of meat, like a steak.