At over 100 million degrees Celsius for a record 20 seconds, South Korea managed to light up an artificial sun and set a new world record. For comparison, the Sun's core is just burning at 15 million degrees Celsius.
The ‘artificial sun’—a superconducting fusion device known as KSTAR (Korea Superconducting Tokamak Advanced Research) — was used by a team of South Korean physicists for the experiment, according to reports, reports India Today.
Scientists obtained plasma (one of the four basic states of matter) from hydrogen for the reaction, consisting of hot ions that approached the temperature of 100 million degrees. It is necessary to maintain extremely high temperatures to preserve the ions.
The researchers have set a new world record by turning this national artificial sun nuclear fusion reactor on and holding the high-temperature plasma for 20 seconds with an ion temperature above 100 million degrees.
Director Si-Woo Yoon of the KSTAR Research Centre at KFE said “The technologies required for long operations of 100 million plasma are the key to the realization of fusion energy, and KSTAR's success in maintaining the plasma of high temperature for 20 seconds will be a major turning point in the race to secure technologies for the long-term operation of high-performance plasma, a critical component of a commercial nuclear fusion reactor in the future.”
This fusion exceeded the plasma operation of last year that operated for 8 seconds. For the first time in 2018, KSTAR had hit a temperature of 100 million degrees but managed only to keep it going for around 1.5 seconds.
KFE plans to achieve fusion ignition for 300 seconds at a time by 2025, according to the report.
This is not the first time a country has tried to light up an ‘artificial sun’ at higher temperatures.
China turned on its 'artificial sun' earlier this month—which managed to function at 150 million degrees Celsius, a local report cited by the China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC).