Korea's 'Artificial Sun¡¯ Sets New Record At 100 Million Degrees Celsius
South Korean scientists have set a new world record for the length of time they sustained temperatures of 100 million degrees Celsius. According to the scientist, the temperature is seven times hotter than the sun¡¯s core. The new record was achieved through a nuclear fusion experiment.
South Korean scientists have set a new world record for the length of time they sustained temperatures of 100 million degrees Celsius. According to the scientist, the temperature is seven times hotter than the sun¡¯s core.
The new record was achieved through a nuclear fusion experiment.
kstar
Artificial sun
The temperature was generated for a record 48 seconds, during tests between December and February.
Dubbed as South Korea's "artificial sun" the Korea Superconducting Tokamak Advanced Research (KSTAR) reactor broke the previous world record of 31 seconds, which was set by the same reactor in 2021. The breakthrough is a small but impressive step on the long road to a source of near-unlimited clean energy.
How the record was achieved
At 100 million degrees Celsius, heavy hydrogen isotopes in the plasma (a hot cloud of ionized gas) are forced to fuse together, releasing energy in a fashion that's similar to what's happening in the Sun's core.
The most common way of achieving fusion energy involves a donut-shaped reactor called a tokamak in which hydrogen variants are heated to extraordinarily high temperatures to create a plasma.
KSTAR
Why this is significant
¡°Thorough hardware testing and campaign preparation enabled us to achieve results surpassing those of previous KSTAR records in a short period of time, even though this was the first experiment run in the environment of the new tungsten diverters,¡± KSTAR Research Centre director Si-Woo Yoon said in a statement.
He said that this team will continue experimenting with the reactor to create temperatures of 100 million degree Celsius for 300 seconds by 2026.
KSTAR
These experiments will help develop the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor, also known as ITER, in southern France, the world¡¯s largest tokamak. Si-Woo Yoon said, ¡°KSTAR¡¯s work will greatly help in securing the projected performance in ITER operations on time and advancing the commercialization of fusion energy.
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