Lifeboat Foundation

A new superconducting magnet has briefly sustained an astonishing 45.5 tesla magnetic field intensity. For comparison, your flimsy fridge magnets have about 1 percent of a single tesla.

The measurement, achieved by researchers at the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory (MagLab) at Florida State University resets the bar on what’s possible in direct current magnetic fields, exceeding the previous limit by half a tesla.

MagLab already houses the world’s strongest continuous magnet, a hybrid that relies on pairing an insanely cold superconductor with a more typical electromagnet to operate.