Here’s how scientists reached nuclear fusion ‘ignition’ for the first time

One of nuclear fusion’s biggest advances wouldn’t have happened without some impeccable scientific artistry.

In December 2022, researchers at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California created fusion reactions that produced an excess of energy — a first. In the experiment, 192 lasers blasted a small chamber, setting off fusion reactions — in which smaller atomic nuclei merge to form larger ones — that released more energy than initially kicked them off (SN: 12/12/22). It’s a milestone known as “ignition,” and it has been decades in the making.

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