Science AMA Series: I'm Jena Meinecke, an Oxford fellow studying the origins of magnetic fields in the universe. Next week I’m doing an experiment with the world’s largest laser at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. AMA!

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Hi, Reddit! I’ve literally prepared for years and travelled around the world for an experiment I’m doing next week. And I’m super excited to geek out with you all about it.

I’ll be using the world’s largest laser – the National Ignition Facility (NIF) at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California – to figure out how magnetic fields came into existence in our universe. It’s a question that’s consumed me and driven years of research: I’ve used other high-energy lasers to create scaled galaxy clusters and supernovas that could fit in the palm of your hand. Using these cosmic objects, I’ve generated seed magnetic fields—the “grandparent” fields of our universe and amplified them to current observations. But to be able to understand the origins of magnetic fields, I’ll need to measure the one of the most coveted phenomena in laboratory astrophysics: turbulent dynamo. There’s only one laser on Earth that can tell us the origins of magnetic fields in our universe, and that’s the NIF laser. We have three shots to gather our data, and next week will take our first shot!

So that’s what get’s me up in the morning. I’m incredibly excited to share our journey with YOU! What would you like to know? AMA!!!

Bio: http://ift.tt/1owPf96 Publications: http://ift.tt/1Qw18CB Epic laser: http://ift.tt/tMwZeY

I’ll be back at 1 pm EST (10 am PST, 6 pm UTC) to answer your questions, ask me anything!

">Science AMA Series: I'm Jena Meinecke, an Oxford fellow studying the origins of magnetic fields in the universe. Next week I’m doing an experiment with the world’s largest laser at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. AMA!