Fire a set of high-power lasers at a tiny speck of hydrogen isotopes and you can initiate nuclear fusion, the process that powers the Sun.
National Ignition Facility
Scientists are working on ways to make lots of energy by converting matter into energy. The trick is keeping the process under control. One possibility is nuclear fusion – the Sun’s power source.
United Nations Security Council members listen to Iranian Deputy Ambassador to the United Nations Eshagh Al-Habib, left, during a meeting on Iran’s compliance with the 2015 nuclear agreement, Dec. 12, 2018, at UN headquarters.
AP Photo/Mary Altaffer
Iran’s leaders are threatening to breach a 2015 agreement that froze their country’s nuclear program. What is uranium enrichment, and what would it mean for Iran’s ability to build nuclear weapons?
The Nazi atomic effort relied on work done in this remote lab.
grob831
Feb. 28 marks the 75th anniversary of Operation Gunnerside. A stealthy group of skiing commandos took out a crucial Nazi facility and stopped Hitler from getting the atomic bomb.
For the first time, human beings harnessed the power of atomic fission.
Keith Ruffles
By figuring out fission, physicists were able to split uranium atoms and release massive amounts of energy. This Manhattan Project work paved the way both for atomic bombs and nuclear power reactors.