Video: How to Put a Star Into a Bottle

As Raffi Khatchadourian explains in this week’s magazine, a daunting challenge of building the world’s largest fusion reactor is making all the pieces fit together; with components coming from many different countries, the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor is one of the most complex engineering projects ever conceived.

The hope is that ITER, which is currently under construction in Southern France, will generate a plasma that produces more energy than it consumes. In this video, Khatchadourian explains how that will happen inside of the massive, donut-shaped reactor, and why building it requires such incredible precision.