Carbon Dioxide l(m)asers in the martian atmosphere

It was interesting to find out that co2 maser emissions were observed from the martian atmosphere. As part of a course on ultrafast lasers, the professor gave us examples of natural occurrences of stimulated emission. I talked about astronomical earlier, in fact I gave a short presentation on the same topic last semester as part of a course on laser theory. Anywho, co2 maser emission from planetary atmospheres. This got me thinking...

Going on a tangent, adaptive optics is a technique used in astronomical observations to reduce the harmful effects of turbulence in the atmosphere. It involves the use of a laser to generate an artificial guide star which can help us calibrate the atmospheric noise during the observations. The artificial star we generate is back scattered light from upper layers of the atmosphere. My question now is, can the laser that we are currently using to generate the artificial star also work as a pump that could be amplified by the atmosphere, to generate a maser emission. There are strict restrictions imposed on a gain medium but I wonder...

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