The force of the sun itself has been harnessed in the world's most powerful laser, which is set to come online after decades of effort and $3.5 billion.

The National Ignition Facility at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California is ready to start experiments, AP reports. An announcement is expected Tuesday.

The setup involves 192 laser beams that converge on one spot. Goals: To conduct physics experiments and insure the nation's nuclear weapons are reliable by doing tests that avoid those inconvenient detonations of the real thing.

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