South Korea's 'Artificial Sun’ Reactor Sets Record At 100 Million Degrees Celsius

Do you remember the phrase ‘the power of the sun in the palm of my hands,’ spoken by supervillain Doctor Octopus in the 2004 film Spiderman 2? In the movie, the supervillain creates a fusion reactor with temperatures much hotter than the sun. He becomes obsessed with continuing the project even when the reactor becomes unstable. Well, 20 years after the idea was explored on film, scientists in South Korea have been able to safely maintain a 100 million degrees celsius temperature in a nuclear fusion experiment, a first for the world and a record by itself. Using the Korea Superconducting Tokamak Advanced Research (KSTAR) device, which was known as an artificial sun nuclear fusion reactor, the team produced plasma temperatures of 100 million degree Celsius. It is seven times hotter than the core of the sun. The temperature was generated for a record 48 seconds, during tests between December and February.

The purpose of this fusion is to recreate the nuclear reaction that makes it possible for the Sun and other stars to shine. This was done by fusing two atoms together so that a huge amount of energy could be released. The most important thing is that the reactor does not emit any kind of carbon or any other kind of pollution which can cause global warming.

“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.

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.