China's ‘Artificial Sun’ Smashes 1000-Second Fusion World Record, 10 Times Hotter Than Sun’s Nucleus

Beijing: China has completed the first test of its nuclear fission reactor, dubbed "Artificial Sun" since it replicates the Sun's energy-generation process.

Nuclear fission is a promising technique that can provide massive amounts of clean energy with minimal waste.

The Chinese "artificial sun," the experimental advanced superconducting tokamak (EAST), has accomplished a continuous high-temperature plasma operation for 1,056 seconds in the most recent experiment, the longest period of operation of its kind in the world. This also exceeds the previous record of 390 seconds achieved by the Tore Supra tokamak in France in 2003 for plasma confinement. The HL-2M tokamak fusion reactor at the Southwestern Institute of Physics (SWIP) in Chengdu, China, is China's "artificial sun."

Also Read: Explained: How Kazakhstan Protests Started and Bird's Eye View of the Scenario

The reactor generates electricity by compressing hydrogen with intense magnetic fields until it forms a plasma that may reach temperatures of more than 150 million degrees Celsius, ten times hotter than the Sun's nucleus, and then fusing the atoms together to generate tremendous quantities of energy. Magnets and supercooling technologies are used to keep the plasma confined.