An experiment using beams of protons to probe how plasma and magnetic fields interact may have just solved the mystery of how quasars and other active supermassive black holes unleash their ...

Black holes are as dangerous as they are distant, so scientists set out to simulate one in a lab. What happened next would make Steven Hawking smile.

The experiment’s implications stretch far beyond the lab. Physicists believe superradiance—the process at the heart of the black hole bomb—could help detect unknown particles, including ...

In 1974, Stephen Hawking theorized that the universe's darkest gravitational behemoths, black holes, were not the pitch-black star swallowers astronomers imagined, but they spontaneously emitted ...

Black holes are some of the most mysterious objects in the universe, but what if we could recreate their physics in a lab? Scientists have conducted 97,000 sonic black hole experiments, using ...

A version of this article appeared in the June 17, 2009 edition of Digital Directions as Simulated vs. Hands-On Lab Experiments. E-Learning. Curriculum Picking and Choosing Digital Content.

In their experiment, the researchers first created a high-energy density plasma by firing a pulsed, 20-joule laser beam at a plastic target. Then, they used powerful lasers to instigate nuclear ...