Physics at the Royal Society Summer Science Exhibition - Plasma Group

The Physics Department's Plasma Group presented 'Set the controls for the heart of the Sun' at the Royal Society Summer Science Exhibition

The Royal Society's annual Summer Science Exhibition, which has been running in one form or another since 1778, included a team from the Physics Dept. this year who were presenting their stand entitled 'Set the controls for the heart of the Sun'. The Summer Science Exhibition welcomed over 15,000 guests over a single week in July in which around twenty different exhibits on the latest scientific developments were presented to members of the public, fellows of the Royal Society, research councils, and future scientists.

'Set the controls for the heart of the Sun' was a collaboration between staff and students from the Plasma Physics Group and their colleagues from AWE, who were talking about experiments which are trying to measure the opacity at the centre of the Sun on the new Orion laser based at AWE Aldermaston. The team had developed a range interactive exhibits which demonstrated some of the most important physical concepts in the research, including a laser beam which could be focused to pop balloons. As well as the solar opacity experiments, the team were talking about efforts to produce a net gain in energy from fusion reactions from the world's most energetic laser, the National Ignition Facility, based in the US.