Photonics technologies are everywhere!

Photonics technologies are amazing, fascinating, and you find them everywhere: in communication, entertainment, medical, manufacturing, automotive, energy, lighting, agriculture, photovoltaic, security, art, …!

Day of Photonics
The internationally recognized ‘Day of Photonics’ is almost there, and over 100 companies globally intend to participate in this inaugural edition. On 21 October 1983, the General Conference of Weights And Measures adopted the value of 299,792.458 km/s for the speed of light. At the occasion of the anniversary, organizations in more than 30 countries organize all types of activities, from internal meetings, outreaches to schools, to opening their doors to the general public. The ‘Day of Photonics’ is the ideal excuse to promote ‘photonics’, and the timing makes it ideally suited as a preliminary to the International Year of Light in 2015.

EPIC (European Photonics Industry Consortium) is the industry association that promotes the sustainable development of organisations working in the field of photonics in Europe. They foster a vibrant photonics ecosystem by maintaining a strong network and acting as a catalyst and facilitator for technological and commercial advancement.

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Discover the Miracle of Light: Flying through an Aurora

This beautiful timelapse from space was created from photographs taken from on board the International Space Station (ISS) by the Expedition 40 crew, end of August, 2014. They ISS crew flew right through a massive aurora after a solar mass ejection took place.

Natural Light Display
An aurora is a natural light display in the sky. It originally comes from the Latin word aurora, “sunrise” or the Roman goddess of dawn. The Aurora is especially visible in the high latitude, the Arctic and Antarctic regions. It is caused by the collision of solar wind and magnetospheric charged particles with the high altitude atmosphere: the thermosphere.

Auroral Zone
Most auroras occur in a band known as the ‘auroral zone’, which is typically 3° to 6° wide in latitude. Most often, it is vividly around the spring and autumn equinoxes. The charged particles and solar wind are directed into the atmosphere by the Earth’s magnetosphere. A geomagnetic storm expands the auroral zone to lower latitudes.

Another Time Lapse Sequence
Here’s another great time lapse sequence of photographs taken by another crew of expeditions 28 & 29 onboard the International Space Station from August to October, 2011, who – as far as I know – shot these pictures at an altitude of around 350 km.

An earlier edit from 2011 by Michael König

Just another great glimpse of Lighting-Inspiration and to celebrate the International Year of Light (IYL2015). Thanks for noticing this unusual but impressive blogpost. Hope you like it as much as I do!