A hugely ambitious project to replicate the energy of the sun is entering a critical phase, as scientists and technicians in southern France begin assembling giant parts of a nuclear fusion device, an international experiment ...
Plasma Physics
Jul 28, 2020
3
31
Fourteen years after receiving the official go-ahead, scientists on Tuesday began assembling a giant machine in southern France designed to demonstrate that nuclear fusion, the process which powers the sun, can be a safe ...
General Physics
Jul 28, 2020
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3208
Radiation nearly always degrades the materials exposed to it, hastening their deterioration and requiring replacement of key components in high-radiation environments such as nuclear reactors. But for certain alloys that ...
Materials Science
Jul 10, 2020
0
563
There are giants among us—gas and ice giants to be specific. They orbit the same star, but their environmental conditions and chemical makeup are wildly different from those of Earth. These enormous planets—Jupiter, Saturn, ...
General Physics
Jun 17, 2020
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44
A team of scientists, including Chief Investigator Ilya Mandel from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Gravitational Wave Discovery (OzGrav) at Monash University, recently studied what happens to rotating massive stars when ...
Astronomy
Jun 11, 2020
1
511
How does hydrogen form blisters in ruthenium mirrors for extreme UV (EUV) lithography machines? An M2i research project by Chidozie Onwudinanti and colleagues at DIFFER, Eindhoven University of Technology and University of ...
Materials Science
May 27, 2020
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3
A team at the DIII-D National Fusion Facility led by a William & Mary physicist has made a significant advancement in physics understanding that represents a key step toward practical fusion energy.
Plasma Physics
May 21, 2020
6
198
The biggest stars in the universe are some of the most fascinatingly complex objects to inhabit the cosmos. Indeed, giant stars have defied full explanation for decades, especially when they're near the end of their lives.
Astronomy
May 18, 2020
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68
If you look out on the sky on a nice clear dark night, you'll see thousands of intense points of light. Those stars are incredibly far away, but bright enough to be seen with the naked eye from that great distance—a considerable ...
Astronomy
May 07, 2020
9
276
Just about everyone has had the experience of blinking while having their picture taken. The camera clicks, your eyes shut, and by the time they open again, the photo is ruined. A new ultrafast camera developed at Caltech, ...
Optics & Photonics
May 05, 2020
1
541
In nuclear physics and nuclear chemistry, nuclear fusion is the process by which multiple like-charged atomic nuclei join together to form a heavier nucleus. It is accompanied by the release or absorption of energy, which allows matter to enter a plasma state.
The fusion of two nuclei with lower mass than iron (which, along with nickel, has the largest binding energy per nucleon) generally releases energy while the fusion of nuclei heavier than iron absorbs energy; vice-versa for the reverse process, nuclear fission. In the simplest case of hydrogen fusion, two protons have to be brought close enough for their mutual electric repulsion to be overcome by the nuclear force and the subsequent release of energy.
Nuclear fusion occurs naturally in stars. Artificial fusion in human enterprises has also been achieved, although has not yet been completely controlled. Building upon the nuclear transmutation experiments of Ernest Rutherford done a few years earlier, fusion of light nuclei (hydrogen isotopes) was first observed by Mark Oliphant in 1932; the steps of the main cycle of nuclear fusion in stars were subsequently worked out by Hans Bethe throughout the remainder of that decade. Research into fusion for military purposes began in the early 1940s as part of the Manhattan Project, but was not successful until 1952. Research into controlled fusion for civilian purposes began in the 1950s, and continues to this day.
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