ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Experimenting at 4.1 million degrees Fahrenheit, physicists at Sandia National Laboratories’ Z machine have found that an astronomical model — used for 40 years to predict the sun’s behavior as well as the life and death of stars — underestimates the energy blockage caused by free-floating iron atoms, a major player in […]
Tag Archives: iron
Sandia experiments at temperature of sun offer solutions to solar model problems
September 10, 2019 – 5:00 am
Sandia physicist Jim Bailey wins major physics award for 10-year study of the sun
July 28, 2016 – 5:00 am
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — By testing bits of iron at the temperature of the sun, Sandia National Laboratories physicist Jim Bailey and his team have provided key data to improve the Standard Solar Model, widely used by astrophysicists to help model the behavior of stars. For this work, Bailey will receive the American Physical Society’s annual […]
Iron rain fell on early Earth, new Z machine data supports
March 18, 2015 – 5:00 am
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Researchers at Sandia National Laboratories’ Z machine have helped untangle a long-standing mystery of astrophysics: why iron is found spattered throughout Earth’s mantle, the roughly 2,000-mile thick region between Earth’s core and its crust. At first blush, it seemed more reasonable that iron arriving from collisions between Earth and planetesimals — ranging […]
‘Iron Sun’ is not a rock band, but a key to how stars transmit energy
January 6, 2015 – 5:00 am
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M — Working at temperatures matching the interior of the sun, researchers at Sandia National Laboratories’ Z machine have been able to determine experimentally, for the first time in history, iron’s role in inhibiting energy transmission from the center of the sun to near the edge of its radiative band — the section of […]