There are some days, I wake up in the morning and find that scientists have done something that makes my inner 12-year-old absolutely giddy. This is one of those days. Scientists working at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory have built the world’s most powerful X-ray laser, and used it to simulate the matter inside of stars.
X-ray lasers, as you might imagine, work much the same as the visible light lasers we’re all familiar with. Only instead of amplifying visible light, it amplifies photons in the X-ray spectrum. Because of the different wavelengths, this requires some different engineering to accomplish. The end result is pretty much the same though – except, of course, X-rays are more dangerous to people than visible light.
