Laser-Plasma Accelerator

Particle accelerators smash bits of matter at near light-speed, all in an effort to recreate stuff that existed shortly after the Big Bang. Trouble is, the machines require a lot of room and cash to build. Europe's 17-mile-around Large Hadron Collider, for example, has a budget of about $9 billion. This visualization shows an alternative: laser-plasma acceleration. The visualization reveals how this technology works.