Laser test setup. (via Oxford University & Sam Vinko)
The suns core is a furnace, which through fusion, directly and indirectly responsible for all the earth's energy. Recreating the fusion reactions of it’s core would solve all of our energy problems if we could only recreate it in a controlled manner on earth. Researchers from the Department of Energy’s Stanford Linear Accelerator Center have made a break through in this quest, with the help of the most powerful X-ray laser to date, the Linac Coherent Light Source.
The laser, called an Atomic X-Ray Laser, produces pulses a billion times brighter than any other X-ray source on the planet. Beaming it at a piece of aluminum, Oxford University researchers were able to heat it to about 2 million degrees (close to the temperature of the Sun’s corona) turning it into the most exotic matter we know of -- plasma.
The feat turned solid-state matter into a ten-micron cube of plasma. This had never been accomplished with solids, and more impressively, this temperature was achieved in less than a picosecond.
This type of advancement is important in trying to understand how plasma occurs and behaves, information that could lead to fusion energy production on earth. The research will be applied in scientific theories and computer programs that model plasma behavior.
Behind the effort is the United State's Department of Energy (DOE). The single largest supporter of research in physical sciences within the USA. One of the reasons why I do not mind paying taxes.
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