Via Gizmag.com:

It’s no secret that Star Wars is full of scenes that defy the laws of physics. From space battles inspired by WW I and II dogfights to beams of light clashing in lightsaber duels. The laser bolts fired from Han Solo’s trusty blaster and Luke’s X-wing also play by their own rules, traveling much slower than the speed of light and being perfectly visible in the vacuum of space. Researchers in Poland have now created a film to show what a laser bolt would actually look like.

The team at the University of Warsaw’s Laser Centre of the Institute of Physical Chemistry of the Polish Academy of Sciences (IPC PAS) and Faculty of Physics (FUW) constructed a compact high-power laser that generates ultrashort laser pulses with a power of over 10 terawatts. The pulse, which last a dozen or so femtoseconds, are so powerful that they almost immediately ionized the atoms they encountered as they pass through the air, resulting in a plasma filament forming alongside the pulse.

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