Scientists at the Tokamak Experimental Advanced Superconducting Superconducting (EAST) located west of Shanghai, China, turned on an artificial sun in search of an unlimited energy source.
According to the report published on the website of Playground Web, on the site is a nuclear fusion facility. The advances were classified as “incredible” and the experts managed to create this miniature sun that burns at a temperature five times higher than the real Sun.
The report adds that during its first test, in 2022, the artificial sun registered a temperature of 70 million degrees Celsius, 55 million more than the queen star of the Solar System.
Now, in a recent test, the miniature sun lasted more than 17 minutes in activity, according to local media outlets such as South China Morning Post.
How does the artificial sun work?
The Chinese government has not revealed much information about what is behind this project. For now, the only thing that is known is that the structure where the artificial sun is created is a tokamak model, devised by the Soviets in the 50s.
This model is made up of a ring-shaped vacuum chamber which, through external pressure and heat, produces a fusion of hydrogen nuclei to form helium. A large amount of energy is used in this process, and the procedure allowed scientists to raise the temperature of the plasma and, through other processes, generate a miniature sun that burns five times hotter than the sun we see in the sky every day.
Gong Xianzu, a researcher at the Institute of Plasma Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said: “The recent operation lays a solid scientific and experimental foundation for the operation of a fusion reactor.”
Song Yuntao, director of the Institute of Plasma Physics, believes that in 2040 the design and the fusion reactor necessary to support the power of the artificial sun will be ready and thus bring clean and unlimited energy to all of China.