National Ignition Facility

Diamonds are the hardest naturally occurring material on Earth, but a supercomputer just modeled stuff that’s even harder. Called a ‘super-diamond,’ the theoretical material could exist beyond our planet—and maybe, one day, be created here on Earth.Do We Have to Send Humans to Mars for Exploration?Like normal diamonds, super-diamonds are made from carbon atoms. This specific phase of carbon, composed of eight atoms, should be stable at ambient conditions. In other words, it could exist in an Earth laboratory.The specific…

A UK-based nuclear fusion collaboration just produced a record amount of energy, a refreshing dose of good news in humankind’s quest for cleaner energy sources. The Joint European Torus facility, or JET, produced just over 69 megajoules of heat.'More People Need to Know About This History': A Black Astronaut Speaks About Race and SpaceA brief distillation of nuclear fusion: It is a reaction by which atomic nuclei fuse, turning into a new element while at the same time producing a huge amount of energy. It is a cleaner…

Nuclear fusion holds huge promise as a source of clean, abundant energy that could power the world. Now, fusion researchers at a national laboratory in the US have achieved something physicists have been working towards for decades, a process known as “ignition”.This step involves getting more energy out from fusion reactions than is put in by a laser.But just how close are we to producing energy from fusion that can power people's homes? While the ignition is only a proof of principle and the first step in a very long…

The U.S. Department of Energy announced Tuesday morning that scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory achieved net energy gain in a fusion reaction, a vaunted goal in humankind’s quest for a reliable, zero-carbon energy source.Successful fusion reactions are nothing new, but the field has struggled with a big problem since its inception: Scientists have not been able to get more power out of a reaction than they had to put in. Now, that has happened.The momentous result from the National Ignition Facility in…

The U.S. Department of Energy is expected to announce a major breakthrough in nuclear fusion research on Tuesday morning. Word of the expected news is already out, as the Financial Times reported yesterday that the National Ignition Facility at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory achieved net energy gain in a fusion reaction. That means more energy was produced from the reaction than it took to power the reaction.Though the research finding is just that—i.e., a result with no immediate consequences for our energy…