National Geographic – Hottest Thing on Earth: X-Rays Heat Metal to 3.6 Million Degrees
National Geographic – Hottest Thing on Earth: X-Rays Heat Metal to 3.6 Million Degrees
By Dave Mosher | 27 January 2012
By zapping a piece of aluminum with the world’s most powerful x-ray laser, physicists have heated matter to 3.6 million degrees Fahrenheit (2 million degrees Celsius)—making it briefly the hottest thing on Earth.
Only locations such as the heart of the sun or the center of a nuclear explosion are hotter.
To the researchers, though, the cosmic-level heat wasn’t a goal but a side effect.
The team is helping to complete a road map for studying the universe’s dizzying range of plasmas—gases with equal numbers of electrons and positive ions that, unlike other gases, conduct electricity and respond to magnetic fields.
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