Physicists Blast Gold to Astonishing Temperatures, Overturning 40 Years of Physics

Physicists superheated gold to 19,000 kelvins—14 times its melting point—without melting it, disproving a long-standing theory about temperature limits in solids. Using ultrafast and powerful x-ray lasers, researchers heated a thin gold sample for 45 femtoseconds, keeping it solid beyond the predicted "entropy catastrophe" limit. This breakthrough challenges previous understanding of material behavior at extreme temperatures and could advance research in planetary science and fusion experiments.