Fusion produced net energy for the first time
A milestone that took seventy years.
For the first time in history, a controlled nuclear fusion reaction produced more energy than the lasers used to trigger it. The result — 3.15 megajoules from a 2.05-megajoule input — is a very long way from powering a home. It is also a very short distance from proving that a star can, in principle, be built on Earth.
Editor's Note
The gap between "impossible" and "engineering problem" narrowed by a single afternoon.
