Magnetic reconnection is a process that occurs when the magnetic fields of a conductive plasma quickly rearrange and release massive amounts of stored magnetic energy. It is widely thought to be the ...

With a powerful laser zap, scientists have blasted toward a milestone for nuclear fusion. A fusion experiment at the world’s biggest laser facility released 1.3 million joules of energy, coming close ...

New analysis uses neutron-free shots to estimate 100–100,000 neutrons per laser pulse in deuterium cluster fusion ...

It's not at every university that laser pulses powerful enough to burn paper and skin are sent blazing down a hallway. But that's what happened in UMD's Energy Research Facility, an unremarkable ...

A million-kilometer effective light path could reveal tiny frequency shifts, but the experiment would not alone prove ...

Scientists have for the first time observed how atoms in magnesium oxide morph and melt under ultra-harsh conditions, providing new insights into this key mineral within Earth's mantle that is known ...

In day-to-day life, light seems intangible. We walk through it and create and extinguish it with the flip of a switch. But, like matter, light actually carries a little punch—it has momentum. Light ...

The field of nuclear fusion has seen some exciting advances of late, with scientists demonstrating how fuels can be heated to the temperatures needed for the necessary reactions to take place. All are ...

The universe is filled with magnetic fields. Understanding how magnetic fields are generated and amplified in plasmas is essential to studying how large structures in the universe were formed and how ...