The world’s largest explosion lab is ready for big booms. And yes, it’s in Texas.

Texas A&M University has opened the world's largest controlled explosion lab, called The Detonation Research Test Facility (DRTF). The lab features a nearly 500-foot metal tube that can be filled with gas and ignited to study detonations. Researchers hope to make discoveries that could better prepare engineers to prevent gas leaks and inform ways to build explosion-resistant infrastructure. The tube is six feet in diameter and has a metal exterior with three-quarter-inch steel walls covered in earth to muffle the sound. Inside, various sensors measure the explosion as it intensifies. The facility can study explosions strong enough to level entire buildings, with shockwaves reaching speeds of Mach 5, or roughly 3,800 miles per hour. The project began as an inquiry from the coal mining industry to determine whether natural gas trapped in a coal mine could explode and detonate.