Love them or hate them, but you cannot ignore them. I am talking about China. They have yet again done something which has taken the World by surprise. China has given the Sun, a run for its money by creating an artificial Sun which is 6 times hotter than the original.
This “artificial sun” burns at 100 million degrees Celsius – over six times hotter than the original one.
This feat has been achieved by a team of scientists from China’s Institute of Plasma Physics. They announced that the plasma in its Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST) had reached the mind-boggling temperature of 100 million degree celsius.
To be more specific, the current natural Sun has a core temperature of roughly 15 million degrees Celsius thereby the Artificial Sun is more than six times hotter.
The Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak fusion device, nicknamed “artificial sun”, is tested at the Institute of Plasma Physics under the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Hefei, the capital city of east China’s Anhui Province.
This is no mean feat as they have already promised something about an artificial moon which will be 8 times brighter than the original moon and they would harness it to replace the city streetlights. China has in the meantime with its moon mission Chang’e-4 already landed on the far side of the moon. The far side is the dark side of the moon which has till date remained unexplored, this is the first time any spacecraft has landed on the dark side of the moon.
The achievement of EAST is not just impressive but a huge step towards China’s nuclear fusion programme.
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Associate Professor Matthew Hole from the Australian National University shed some light about the achievement and its significance.
“The benefit is simple in that it is a very large-scale baseload continuous energy production, with zero greenhouse gas emissions and no long-life radioactive waste,” he explained.
The research team of EAST said, it achieved this milestone through the use of various new techniques in heating and controlling the plasma, but were only able to maintain the record temperature for about 10 seconds. Anything above the timing would have had a complete meltdown of everything.
Dr Hole also adds that nuclear fusion reactors avoid the risks associated with the current nuclear fission reactors, which can be adapted into dangerous weapons and are prone to possible meltdowns with disastrous outcomes.
There is a lot that the World can learn from China. Once being an agricultural country has now transformed into a technologically advanced country with more and more focus on AI, new inventions, economy and at the same time preservation of nature through reforestation. Going by the speed they are progressing, moon and sun are already within their reach and the only thing left is the stars.
