Photo: Regis Duvignau/Reuters
This 10-meter-diameter ultrarugged aluminum sphere, the centerpiece of France’s Laser Mégajoule project, is just a fancy container. Inside it is the tiny deuterium-tritium target at which 240 high-powered lasers will fire beams to trigger a moment of nuclear fusion. Studying the result might eliminate the need for nuclear weapons testing.











Willie Jones
Willie Jones is an associate editor at IEEE Spectrum. In addition to editing and planning daily coverage, he manages several of Spectrum's newsletters and contributes regularly to the monthly Big Picture section that appears in the print edition.
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