Quick Shot

As part of the National Laser Users’ Facility program, The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Luxel Corp., and General Atomics designed and built a new gas-bag platform to study fundamental astrophysical phenomena, including the propagation, interaction, and instability of astrophysical jets and plasma shocks. The resulting data will provide insights into and advancement of fundamental issues surrounding frontier astrophysics and basic high-energy-density physics. The goal of MIT’s experiments at LLE will be to generate a magnetized collisionless shock by driving a supersonic plasma flow into the pressurized gas-bag in the presence of external magnetic fields.