Scientists Are Actively Building a Real-Life Tractor Beam. Seriously.

If you’re familiar with any amount of sci-fi, you’ve probably been made aware of the tractor beam. Often used in fiction to grab rogue objects or opposing spaceships and move them around, they usually consist of a nondescript beam of light shooting out from a craft to envelop something and hold it in place.
Insert a hand-wavey explanation of the “science” behind the future-tech here.
But that explanation may soon be less hand-wavey, and the tech may be less future. Because a real-life tractor beam is currently under development at the University of Colorado Boulder, with the goal of eventually helping to clean up space junk.
Scientists Are Actively Building a Real-Life Tractor Beam. Seriously.