Rail Guns Closer to Reality

Scientists at Sandia National Labs have created a magnetic pulse gun (rail gun) that can accelerate small aluminum plates at 34 kilometres per second, faster than the Earth travels through space. The accelerated plates strike a target after traveling only five millimeters, or less than a quarter-inch. The impact generates a shock wave — in some cases, reaching 15 million times atmospheric pressure — that passes through the target material turning matter into various states almost instantly (solids into liquids, liquids into gas, and even gas into plasma)