Z Machine: The Art and Science of Making White Dwarfs in the Desert - YouTube

The Z Machine at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico is the stuff of comic book legend.

The massive X-ray generator is capable of creating what astronomer Don Winget calls “star stuff,” the same dense plasma that makes up the universe’s white dwarf stars.

According to the University of Texas, for a few nanoseconds the Z Machine creates an electrical current so strong that it equals more than six times the total amount of energy released by all of the power plants in the entire world.

Then, in a tiny chamber, tungsten wires are vaporised by the electricity and hydrogen plasma is formed along with a magnetic field that causes it to implode.

As the magnetic field “pinches” the plasma for an incredibly brief moment, the result is a massive burst of X-ray radiation and the formation of a tiny piece of white dwarf star, which is 10,000 times more dense than the surface of our sun.

Winget describes seeing a bright flash of light and feeling a giant boom move through him, followed by the rise and fall of a seismic wave that causes concentric circles of dust to expand outward from the laboratory.

All of this takes place in a giant chamber that measures 100 feet across and 20 feet high, originally built to model nuclear weapons.

Now Winget and his team hope to use it to study how stars are formed and what goes on in the center of them.

It could also be a step towards harnessing nuclear fusion to meet the Earth’s growing energy needs. For now, it’s the best alternative we have to simply observing stars from across the galaxy