So happy that my image of a “mini Stellarator” was selected for natgeo’s Pictures of the Year 2025. Greifswald, Germany, Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics. With an eye toward solving the global energy crisis, scientists are developing powerful nuclear fusion devices called stellarators. The mini stellarator, with its two sets of coils, generates a magnetic field that shapes and confines the plasma. This model illustrates the principle of magnetic confinement, which is also used at the Wendelstein 7-X fusion facility in Greifswald, Germany. Wendelstein 7-X has 50 non-planar and 20 planar superconducting coils to confine the plasma, the temperature of which was raised to over 20 million degrees Celsius, reaching a peak of 30 million degrees during the last operational campaign. During this campaign, Wendelstein 7-X also achieved a world record in a key parameter of fusion physics: the triple product* for long plasma durations. This image is part of the story I’m completing on Fusi...