Contrary to what many people believe, outer space is not empty. In addition to an electrically charged soup of ions and electrons known as plasma, space is permeated by magnetic fields with a wide range of strengths. Astrophysicists ...
Plasma Physics
Nov 5, 2018
30
170
An international team of scientists is running tests on the largest and most sophisticated stellerator, the Wendelstein 7-X fusion experiment. This complex machine is housed at the Max-Planck-Institute of Plasma Physics in ...
Plasma Physics
Jul 3, 2018
1
8
In seeking to achieve fusion energy, research on magnetic field confinement of high-temperature plasma is being conducted around the world. In a high-temperature plasma, there is a temperature gradient. When the temperature ...
Plasma Physics
Jun 20, 2018
1
4
Magnetic islands, bubble-like structures that form in fusion plasmas, can grow and disrupt the plasmas and damage the doughnut-shaped tokamak facilities that house fusion reactions. Recent research at the U.S. Department ...
Plasma Physics
Jun 7, 2018
0
4
Scientists seeking to bring fusion—the power that drives the sun and stars—down to Earth must first make the state of matter called plasma superhot enough to sustain fusion reactions. That calls for heating the plasma ...
Plasma Physics
Apr 21, 2018
154
228
Birds do it and so do doughnut-shaped fusion facilities called "tokamaks." But tokamak chirping— a rapidly changing frequency wave that can be far above what the human ear can detect—is hardly welcome to researchers who ...
Plasma Physics
Mar 16, 2018
0
81
The mystery of why comets travelling through Space give off X-ray emissions has been solved thanks to new research undertaken by a team that included science staff from STFC's Central Laser Facility (CLF) and RAL Space.
General Physics
Mar 13, 2018
63
304
Researchers at the DIII-D National Fusion Facility, a DOE Office of Science user facility operated by General Atomics, used a "reduced physics" fluid model of plasma turbulence to explain unexpected properties of the density ...
Plasma Physics
Feb 13, 2018
0
12
Plasmas, gas-like collections of ions and electrons, make up an estimated 99 percent of the visible matter in the universe, including the sun, the stars, and the gaseous medium that permeates the space in between. Most of ...
Plasma Physics
Dec 1, 2017
8
307
A key hurdle for fusion researchers is understanding turbulence, the ripples and eddies that can cause the superhot plasma that fuels fusion reactions to leak heat and particles and keep fusion from taking place. Comprehending ...
Plasma Physics
Oct 14, 2017
27
179
