X-Ray Flash Fly Photography

Courtesy David Hammer, Cornell University

The high-resolution details in these x-ray photographs of a house fly (a) and a fruit fly (b) help demonstrate the characteristics of an X-pinch flash.

Courtesy David Hammer, Cornell University

Enlarged parts of the fruit fly image. The parts b.1 and b.2 are as marked in the top figure. The image captures details as small as several microns (millionths of a meter).

Courtesy David Hammer, Cornell University

A hundred thousand amps of current coursing through the slender, crossed wires in an X-pinch experiment leads to a burst of x-rays that emanate from one or two small plasma points.

Reported by: S. Pikuz, T. A. Shelkovenko, and D. B. Sinars, 43rd Annual Meeting of the American Physical Society Division of Plasma Physics, 29 October - 2 November 2001, Long Beach California.

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