Chinese research teams managed to create an artificial ‘sun’, better known as the Tokamak Advanced Experimental Superconductor (EAST), which is capable of exceeding temperatures of 100 million degrees Celsius.
Chinese EAST tokamak achieves new record steady-state H-mode pulse, first over 60 seconds #fusionenergy https://t.co/9gCk1n1Hx6 pic.twitter.com/WJNWqbXwKz
— General Fusion (@GeneralFusion) November 17, 2016
The Hefei Institutes of Physical Sciences of the Chinese Academy of Sciences announced on Tuesday that the electrons of their ‘sun’ reached that caloric magnitude this year, in the course of a four-month experiment.
The EAST is an apparatus for obtaining nuclear fusion energy and was designed to mimic the way in which the Sun generates its enormous caloric and luminous power.
Unlike its Chinese analogue, the true star at the center of our solar system has a much lower temperature at its core, around 15 million degrees Celsius.
The objective of this ‘artificial sun’ is to study nuclear fusion to be able to use it some day as an alternative energy source.
Unlike fission nuclear energy, which leaves toxic waste, the energy obtained from nuclear fusion could be clean.
The ‘artificial sun’ is not the only invention of the Chinese in that field. In October it was announced that the city of Chengdu, located in the province of Sichuan, developed an ambitious plan to launch in 2020 to the space an ‘artificial moon’ that will illuminate its streets at night and replace the streetlights.
