A laser powerful enough to tear apart the fabric of space is planned as part of a new scientific project that aims to answer some of the most fundamental questions about our universe.

The Extreme Light Infrastructure (ELI) Ultra-High Field Facility would produce a laser so intense that scientists say it would allow them to reveal vacuum particles for the first time by pulling this vacuum “fabric” apart.

“This laser will be 200 times more powerful than the most powerful lasers that currently exist,” said Professor John Collier, a scientific leader for the ELI project. “At this kind of intensity we start to get into unexplored territory as it is an area of physics that we have never been before.”

The ELI Ultra-High Field laser is due to be complete by the end of the decade.