One way to improve a fusion reaction: Use weaknesses as strengths
In the Japanese art of Kintsugi, an artist takes the broken shards of a bowl and fuses them back together with gold to make a final product more beautiful than the original.
In the Japanese art of Kintsugi, an artist takes the broken shards of a bowl and fuses them back together with gold to make a final product more beautiful than the original.
Condensed Matter
Mar 5, 2024
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In the predawn hours of Sept. 5, 2021, engineers achieved a major milestone in the labs of MIT's Plasma Science and Fusion Center (PSFC), when a new type of magnet, made from high-temperature superconducting material, achieved ...
Superconductivity
Mar 4, 2024
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363
Fusion is a natural phenomenon that provides our planet with much of its energy—generated millions of miles away in the center of our sun.
Plasma Physics
Feb 24, 2024
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22
In the blink of an eye, the unruly, superheated plasma that drives a fusion reaction can lose its stability and escape the strong magnetic fields confining it within the donut-shaped fusion reactor. These getaways frequently ...
Plasma Physics
Feb 21, 2024
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97
Missions to the moon, missions to Mars, robotic explorers to the outer solar system, a mission to the nearest star, and maybe even a spacecraft to catch up to interstellar objects passing through our system. If you think ...
Space Exploration
Oct 6, 2023
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190
Humans may never be able to tame the sun, but hydrogen plasma—making up most of the sun's interior—can be confined in a magnetic field as part of fusion power generation: with a caveat.
Plasma Physics
Jul 27, 2023
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300
Imagine the explosive disturbance caused by a jet going supersonic. A similar shock wave occurs when subatomic particles known as "solar wind" flow from the sun and strike the Earth's magnetic field. Now, scientists have ...
Plasma Physics
Jun 27, 2023
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To produce commercial energy, future fusion power plants will need to achieve temperatures of 100 million degrees C. To do so requires careful control of the plasma. In a study published in the journal Nuclear Fusion, researchers ...
Plasma Physics
May 30, 2023
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287
A magnetic cage keeps the more than 100 million degree Celsius hot plasmas in nuclear fusion devices at a distance from the vessel wall so that they do not melt. Now researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics ...
Plasma Physics
Apr 11, 2023
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195
Lead author Yurii Victorovich Kovtun, despite being forced to evacuate the Kharkiv Institute of Physics and Technology amid the current Russia-Ukraine war, has continued to work with Kyoto University to create stable plasmas ...
Plasma Physics
Mar 29, 2023
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