California physicists fired the most powerful x-ray laser ever constructed at an iodine molecule, tearing the molecule apart in the process – and briefly causing the iodine molecule to exhibit black hole-esque behavior. The team used Stanford University's LCLS x-ray laser at the SLAC National Accelerator Observatory. The beam packs unimaginable power: it uses a two-mile-long linear accelerator to generate literally billions of times more power than older lasers. When you have something that powerful, you want to shoot it at stuff. The physicists used the LCLS laser on a single iodine atom that was bound to a methyl molecule (comprising one carbon and three hydrogen atoms), firing a beam 1,000 times thinner than a human hair at it. They weren't sure what would happen to such a molecular formation when struck with a laser of this magnitude. The x-ray radiation stripped away the electrons from the atom, as expected. But the huge amounts of energy hitting the atom caused the iodine to