Giant, Heavy and Hollow: Physicists Create Extreme Atoms
Thursday, June 6, 2013 - 09:00
in Physics & Chemistry
One way to obliterate an atom is to shoot it with the planet's most powerful X-ray gun. Linda Young tried that experiment in October 2009, when she was testing the newly opened X-ray free-electron laser at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory in Menlo Park, California. A single pulse from the US$420-million machine packs the same energy as all the solar radiation hitting Earth at that moment, but focused down to one square centimeter. “It will destroy anything you put in front of it,” says Young. [More]