Video:

Caption: With support from the National Science Foundation, a new laboratory to study cosmic dynamos will soon open on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus. At the heart of the lab will be a 3-meter diameter, hollow cast aluminum sphere, made by the Wisconsin company Portage Casting and Mold, chosen after a national search. The sphere is designed to hold the 200,000-degree Fahrenheit plasmas that power cosmic dynamos similar to the Earth's dynamo, which gives our planet its magnetic field and protects us from singing solar winds. Here, the first half of the sphere is cast at Portage Casting and Mold.
Video: Peter Kleppin
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Caption: On June 16, 2011, workers at Portage Casting and Mold Inc. in Portage, Wis., use an overhead crane to position and assemble parts a five-section-mold before pouring more than 7,000 pounds of molten aluminum into a cast that will form one of two 3-meter-diameter hemispheres needed for the main vacuum vessel of the Plasma Dynamo Facility being installed at Sterling Hall at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Using $2.4 million in stimulus funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF), the experiment is a continuation of research studying the origin of magnetic fields in the universe and exploring the self-generation of magnetic fields in a plasma dynamo as a potential energy source. The Plasma Dynamo Facility is co-led by UW-Madison physics professor Cary Forest and astronomy professor Ellen Zweibel.
Photo by: Jeff Miller
Date: June 2011
300 DPI JPEG

Caption: On June 16, 2011, workers at Portage Casting and Mold Inc. in Portage, Wis., pour more than 7,000 pounds of molten aluminum into a five-section-mold that will form one of two 3-meter-diameter hemispheres needed for the main vacuum vessel of the Plasma Dynamo Facility being installed at Sterling Hall at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Using $2.4 million in stimulus funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF), the experiment is a continuation of research studying the origin of magnetic fields in the universe and exploring the self-generation of magnetic fields in a plasma dynamo as a potential energy source. The Plasma Dynamo Facility is co-led by UW-Madison physics professor Cary Forest and astronomy professor Ellen Zweibel.
Photo by: Jeff Miller
Date: June 2011
300 DPI JPEG

Caption: After pouring more than 7,000 pounds of molten aluminum on June 16, 2011, workers at Portage Casting and Mold Inc. in Portage, Wis., open a five-section-mold that formed one of two 3-meter-diameter hemispheres needed for the main vacuum vessel of the Plasma Dynamo Facility being installed at Sterling Hall at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Using $2.4 million in stimulus funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF), the experiment is a continuation of research studying the origin of magnetic fields in the universe and exploring the self-generation of magnetic fields in a plasma dynamo as a potential energy source. The Plasma Dynamo Facility is co-led by UW-Madison physics professor Cary Forest and astronomy professor Ellen Zweibel.
Photo by: Jeff Miller
Date: June 2011
300 DPI JPEG

Caption: On June 16, 2011, University of Wisconsin-Madison physics professor Cary Forest (wearing blue shirt and yellow hardhat) is joined by other university researchers to watch as workers at Portage Casting and Mold Inc. in Portage, Wis., pour more than 7,000 pounds of molten aluminum into a five-section-mold that will form one of two 3-meter-diameter hemispheres needed for the main vacuum vessel of the Plasma Dynamo Facility being installed at UW-Madison's Sterling Hall. Using $2.4 million in stimulus funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF), the experiment is a continuation of research studying the origin of magnetic fields in the universe and exploring the self-generation of magnetic fields in a plasma dynamo as a potential energy source. The Plasma Dynamo Facility is co-led by UW-Madison physics professor Cary Forest and astronomy professor Ellen Zweibel.
Photo by: Jeff Miller
Date: June 2011
300 DPI JPEG

Caption: On June 16, 2011, University of Wisconsin-Madison physics professor Cary Forest (right) and instrument innovator John Wallace (background) watch as workers at Portage Casting and Mold Inc. in Portage, Wis., pour more than 7,000 pounds of molten aluminum into a five-section-mold that will form one of two 3-meter-diameter hemispheres needed for the main vacuum vessel of the Plasma Dynamo Facility being installed at UW-Madison's Sterling Hall. Using $2.4 million in stimulus funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF), the experiment is a continuation of research studying the origin of magnetic fields in the universe and exploring the self-generation of magnetic fields in a plasma dynamo as a potential energy source. The Plasma Dynamo Facility is co-led by UW-Madison physics professor Cary Forest and astronomy professor Ellen Zweibel.
Photo by: Jeff Miller
Date: June 2011
300 DPI JPEG