IRC-Galleria

Experiment to simulate conditions in an exploding star slowed down millions of times.

The world's most powerful laser (covering the area of an American football field) is focused onto a sample of calcium, sulfur, carbon and iron the size of a pinhead. These materials are thought to be the same as a star's nucleus. At the instant of ignition the laser runs at a power output (wattage) twenty times larger than the electrical consumption of the USA.

Shock wave tears the atoms apart, and the superheated gas plasma explodes outwards coalescing into fractal tendrils reminiscent of an astronomical photo of a nebula.

Music is Portishead - Wandering Star (1994)



More about the Super Laser at the National Ignition Facility
http://www.kqed.org/quest/television/super-laser-at-the-national-ignition-facility