For fusion look to planet's core

What would a journey to the centre of Jupiter or Saturn be like?

Making the journey for real is beyond current technologies but Oxford's Gianluca Gregori and colleagues have done the next best thing and recreated conditions at the planets' cores using STFC's Vulcan laser.

The team reported in Nature Physics last month how they used an X-ray beam to replicate conditions inside planets where solid matter exists at temperatures in excess of 50,000 degrees Celsius.

Experimenting on a compressed lithium sample they found that, at such extremes, matter is in an intermediate state between a solid and a gas over lengths larger than 0.3 nanometres.

The findings aren't just of interest to space scientists, they have implications for those searching for the ultimate green power source: nuclear fusion.

Gianluca explains: 'This research makes it not only possible to formulate more accurate models of planetary dynamics, but also extend our comprehension of controlled thermonuclear fusion where such states of matter, that is liquid and gas, must be crossed to initiate fusion reactions.'

'This work expands our knowledge of complex systems of particles where the laws that regulate their motion are both classical and quantum mechanical.'

Read the original STFC release here.

Dr Gianluca Gregori is an RCUK Research Fellow based at Oxford's Department of Physics and STFC's Central Laser Facility.

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