Artist's impression of a gas giant planet circling the star Gliese 436. The new laser will investigate the internal chemistry of these vast planets (Image: NASA)From New Scientist:
AN AWESOME laser facility, built to provide fusion data for nuclear weapons simulations, will soon be used to probe the secrets of extrasolar planets.
The National Ignition Facility (NIF) at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California was declared ready for action earlier this month. Its vital statistics reveal it to be a powerful beast: its ultraviolet lasers can deliver 500 trillion watts in a 20-nanosecond burst. That power opens up new scientific possibilities.
It can deliver 500 trillion watts in a 20-nanosecond burst - opening up new scientific possibilities
For instance, Raymond Jeanloz, an astronomer at the University of California, Berkeley, will use the device to recreate the conditions inside Jupiter and other larger planets, where pressures can be 1000 times as great as those at the centre of the Earth.
Read more ....
No comments:
Post a Comment