Under pressure: Ramp-compression smashes record

In the first university-based planetary science experiment at the National Ignition Facility (NIF), researchers have gradually compressed a diamond sample to a record pressure of 50 megabars (50 million times Earth’s atmospheric pressure). By replicating the conditions believed to exist in the cores of several recently discovered “super-Earths” — extra-solar planets three to 20 times more massive than Earth — the experiments could provide clues to the formation and structure of these and other giant planets, as well as the exotic behavior of materials at ultrahigh densities.

View original post here:
Under pressure: Ramp-compression smashes record