“The National Ignition Facility (NIF) in California aims to demonstrate the feasibility of nuclear fusion, the reaction at the heart of the Sun and a potentially abundant, clean energy source for the planet.
But whilst many eyes at the facility will be locked on the goal of satisfying humanity’s energy demands, many scientists hope to answer other fundamental questions for mankind.
…“At NIF you can schedule a supernova explosion for Thursday at nine in the morning instead of waiting for one to happen by accident in the Universe,” said Dr Storm. “And you can change experiments each time. So you can do a supernova explosion again, and again and again.”
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During fusion experiments, the beams briefly focus 500 trillions watts of power – more than the peak electrical generating power of the entire United States – on to a ball-bearing-sized pellet of hydrogen fuel. “
Er wait, I guess there is a tiny bit of pressure: “NIF’s lasers will be able to produce pressures up to billions of atmospheres.” Follow the link, there is much more!