The machine is called the Wendelstein 7-X, or W7-X for short. It's a type of nuclear fusion machine called a stellarator, and is the largest most sophisticated of its kind.
Nuclear fusion could prove to be a clean, and inexhaustible energy source. But so far, humans are still a ways from successfully building a reactor that could power a small town, let alone entire cities. But now, we're one step closer.
On Thursday, the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics tweeted out a beautiful image of the machine's first plasma (shown below) — a gas where all the electrons have been stripped from their atoms, which is a task that requires tremendous amounts of energy and is critical to achieving nuclear fusion.
Das erste Plasma!!! / The first plasma!!! (js) #W7X pic.twitter.com/lWk1ykaisA
— MPI für Plasmaphysik (@PlasmaphysikIPP) December 10, 2015
The key to a successful nuclear-fusion reactor of any kind is to generate, confine, and control plasma. This is the first confirmation that the machine is performing as planned.
Last year, after 1.1 million construction hours, the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics completed construction of the $1.1 billion W7-X.
The black horse of nuclear reactors
Known in the plasma physics community as the "black horse" of reactors that use nuclear fusion, stellarators are notoriously difficult to build.
The GIF below shows the many different layers of W7-X, which took 19 years to complete:
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