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WATER DROPLETS BEING vapourised may seem like a trivial way to use an ultrapower X-ray laser, but for researchers at Stanford University in the US, there was a purpose.
Its SLAC National Accelerator Lab wanted to better understand explosions caused by X-rays and as a result, it put the X-ray at full power to see what kind of explosions would occur.
Why water jets and droplets? It’s because water is a common way of bringing samples into the path of the X-ray during experiments. By testing it out on normal water, the experiments would help them avoid unwanted effects on samples as well as find new ways to using explosions to trigger changes.
The team used a high resolution microscope to take a photo of the setup – the videos captured show the first nine millionths of a second after the explosion – and stitched the images together to show how the x-ray rips apart the droplets and water jets.
But more importantly, you get to see water droplets being ripped apart in fun ways. Like this:
And this:
Definitely worth it.
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