Experiments replicate high densities in ‘white dwarf’ star remnants

To study the pressures created by white dwarf stars, researchers fired nanometer laser light into a hohlraum—a tiny gold cylinder—bathing a 1 mm sample of a carbon-based compound in radiation heated to nearly 3.5 million degrees, at pressures ranging from 100 to 450 million atmospheres. (Illustration courtesy of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory)