--- title: "We’re Only Slightly Exaggerating When We Say This Footage of a Fusion Experiment Will Melt Your Face Off" description: "Humanity probably isn't on the cusp of a nuclear fusion revolution just yet. But along the way, we are getting some peeks at mind-blowing fusion experiments, so what's the big rush?" date: "2025-10-19" modified: "2025-10-19" authors: - name: "Frank Landymore" job_title: "Contributing Writer" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/flandymore" url: "https://futurism.com/science-energy/footage-fusion-experiment-melt-off" categories: - "Energy" - "Nuclear Fusion" - "Renewable Energy" - "Science & Energy" --- # We’re Only Slightly Exaggerating When We Say This Footage of a Fusion Experiment Will Melt Your Face Off ![New footage from the British fusion firm Tokamak Energy shows unbelievably hot plasma imprisoned in a magnetic field.]() *Tokamak Energy* Humanity probably isn't on the cusp of a nuclear fusion revolution just yet. But along the way, we are getting some peeks at mind-blowing fusion experiments, so what's the big rush? We submit this new footage from the British fusion firm Tokamak Energy, which captures physics so extreme that they almost doesn't look real. Shot with a high speed color camera, the video shows a donut-shaped chamber called a tokamak — the company's namesake — swirling with a pink cloud of glowing hydrogen plasma as it reaches temperatures hotter than the core of the Sun, all imprisoned in an unbelievably powerful magnetic field. What we're seeing is only the visible light from the plasma's edge, because the core of the plasma is so hot that it doesn't emit visible light at all. In the top right corner, you can also witness a dazzling spectacle of lithium grains being injected into the chamber. At first a brilliant red, the lithium grains fall deeper into the plasma, while ionization turns it into a blurred halo of bright green. https://twitter.com/TokamakEnergy/status/1978444115806146576 Nuclear fusion is the same process that powers stars for billions of years, including our own Sun. In the core of a star, the immense gravity smashes small atoms hydrogen atoms together in a superheated soup of plasma, releasing more heat when they combine. Recreating this on Earth is tricky, since we don't have the absurd gravity of a star to effortlessly smash atoms together. A tokamak is one way of doing it, though: it uses superconductor magnets to create a powerful magnetic field that traps the plasma, which is so hot that no solid material can contain it. The fuel source, hydrogen atoms, also come with drawbacks. Though it's the most abundant atom in the universe, they're trickier to come by on Earth, especially the specific isotopes needed for fusion. Naturally occurring deuterium is somewhat rare and can be extracted from seawater, but another popular isotope, tritium, is so scare that scientists have to "breed" it by irradiating lithium, itself a metal in short supply. But in theory, they're much safer fuel sources than the atoms used in nuclear fission, like plutonium and uranium, with the radiation it releases during fusion having a very short half life. Right now, our puny human attempts at kickstarting fusion demands putting in more energy than it puts out. It's still far from being practical, but the cool footage we're witnessing is actually a boon to scientists. "The color camera is especially helpful for experiments like these," Tokamak Energy physicist Laura Zhang [said in a statement](). "It helps us immediately identify whether the gaseous impurities we’re introducing are radiating at the expected place, and whether lithium powders are penetrating to the plasma core." **More on fusion:** [*Fusion Startup Says It’s Figured Out How to Turn Mercury Into Gold*]() ## Author At Futurism, my work has often centered on bringing a sense of clarity and insight to complex topics ranging from the regulation of emerging technologies to the esoteric ideologies of Silicon Valley executives, while striving not to lose the poetic sense of awe inspired by often-obscure fields like astrophysics and quantum computing. I broke the story of CNET using AI to produce articles that turned out to be riddled with factual errors and plagiarism — a dam-breaking inflection point, as I've reported, that's inspired copycats and endless discourse while beguiling stakeholders ranging from tech giants to purveyors of spam around the web. My work at Futurism has been cited by publications including CBS News, the Los Angeles Times, Vice, Gizmodo, Engadget, the Verge, and Vanity Fair. I grew up in locales ranging from India to China, and now live in the exotic suburbs of Virginia. In my free time, I'm an avid reader of weird sci-fi literature, an aficionado of East Asian cinema, and, regrettably, a relapsed gamer. Allegedly, I’m working on a debut novel, currently untitled. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()