Backlink: SCIENCE ALERT

The most powerful laser in the US right now is getting turned on to send its first pulses this week – enabling researchers to get a new level of insight into plasma physics and particle accelerators.

Known as the Zetawatt-Equivalent Ultrashort pulse laser System (ZEUS), it produces an ultra-short, extremely powerful pulse of just 25 femtoseconds. A femtosecond is a quadrillionth of a second – or to put it another way, a femtosecond is to a second what a second is to about 31.71 million years.