An experiment here on Earth has just replicated one of the most extreme astrophysical processes in miniature.

Physicists at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) have succeeded in creating collimated jets that resemble those that erupt from baby stars and feeding black holes.

Our lab version is nowhere near as large or powerful as those in space, which can extend for millions of light-years. But the results have revealed for the first time a long-hypothesized plasma instability that can help us understand how these eruptions form and launch into space at speeds close to that of light.