NIF IN SPACE EXPERIMENTS
We speak to Jena Meinecke, who used the laser to study cosmic magnetic fields
© Getty / NASA / LLNL / Illustration by Adrian Mann
Meinecke was based at Christ Church College, Oxford University, when she used the NIF laser
What did you use the laser for?
Fast-moving shock waves may be the birthplace of the ubiquitous magnetic fields that pervade our universe. The strength of these fields increases until a unique phenomenon occurs called turbulent dynamo. This is a regime of nonlinear magnetic field amplification commonly observed in the universe, but only recently created here on Earth by our team. We used 255 kilojoules of blue light to generate two highly turbulent, interpenetrating shock waves to stimulate a turbulent dynamo. In doing so, we hope to understand the dynamics of a variety of astrophysical environments, including galaxy clusters and supernovae.