Chinese corn scientists have succeeded in reaching a temperature that exceeds the sun's temperature 6 times, an important step in the global quest to harness energy from nuclear fusion, a process that occurs naturally in the sun.
The team of scientists from the China Institute of Plasma Physics announced this week that they had reached the temperature of the plasma at the Superconductor Experimental Reactor or Tocamac, called the Industrial Sun, to 100 million degrees Celsius, the required temperature To maintain the interaction of the fusion that produces more energy than is required to operate it.
To illustrate, the temperature in the heart of the sun is estimated at 15 million degrees Celsius, making the plasma in the "industrial sun" in China about 6 times more than the sun's heat.
Chinese scientists said they were able to achieve this tremendous heat using different new methods to heat and control the plasma, but they explained that this heat lasted only for ten seconds only.
Although scientists achieved the goal of reaching 100 million degrees Celsius, they did not achieve the time required to maintain this temperature, which is 17 minutes.
The news came after China shocked the scientific community last October with plans to launch an industrial "light moon" to replace street lights by 2020.
In an interview with ABC, Matthew Hall, assistant professor at the Australian National University, said the achievement was an important step in the science of nuclear fusion.
"It is certainly an important step for China's nuclear fusion program and an important development for the whole world," he said, adding that the development of fusion reactors could be the solution to global energy problems.
He pointed out that the benefit of this step is the production of huge and continuous energy, without greenhouse gas emissions nor long-term radioactive waste.
He added that nuclear fusion reactors also lack the risks associated with currently used nuclear fission reactors, which can be used to develop nuclear weapons, and can cause enormous environmental and human disasters.
In February 2016, the scientists had reached 50 million degrees Celsius and managed to hold them for 102 seconds, a record at the time.
