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Driving New Discoveries

Experiments at the National Ignition Facility used direct laser-driven compression of iron to pressure-temperature conditions relevant to Earth’s inner core, with x-ray radiography and VISAR diagnostics.

A journey to the center of the earth

It was a journey to the center of the Earth, if only for the briefest of moments. But rather than tunneling thousands of miles from the Earth’s surface, researchers from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) and several universities used the National Ignition Facility to recreate those extreme temperature and pressure conditions of the Earth’s inner core. This enabled the first ever simultaneous measurement of iron’s dynamic strength at relevant temperature and pressures.

Read more about the experiment

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S&TR Magazine March 2022

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