Lockheed Martin has just announced a 60-kilowatt laser weapon that soon will be installed on an Army truck for operational testing against mortars and small drones.

The weapon can take out a drone from a distance of about 500 yards (meters) by keeping its beam locked onto the target for a few seconds, Jim Murdoch, an international business development director at Lockheed, told reporters this week.

But unlike in the movies, the laser beam is invisible to the naked eye.

By focusing the beam onto a target, the technology rapidly heats the inside of an incoming mortar round, causing it to explode mid-air. An impressive feat considering the round is moving at hundreds of miles per hour.