Stellar Explosions in the Lab
When an experiment consists of magnetism and plasma flying at 50 km/s you know it’s got to be good. A recent experiment conducted at Caltech involves these and more.
The experiment itself was conducted to better understand coronal mass ejections which form when magnetic fields “snap” and reconnect, expelling incredibly hot plasma in the process. Another phenomenon known as a Kink instability was also present. As the plasma is essentially 20,000 Kelvin gas of charged particles (with a current of 100,000 Amps) it generates a magnetic field as it moves. This magnetic field affects the charged particles in return, causing them to spiral and cork screw, which can be seen in this picture.
The Kink instability also begets another instability known as the Rayleigh-Taylor instability (which is also what causes the tendrils on the inside of the Crab Nebula) which forms when a dense fluid attempts to move through a less dense fluid, in this case the dense plasma through the lower density vacuum that trails it, causing the ripples seen.
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