China`s `artificial Sun` clocks record-breaking 120 million degree Celsius, all you need to know

Scientists have designed an 'Artificial Sun' on Earth that has sustained a temperature of 120 million degrees Celsius, a world record. The Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST) fusion reactor designed by China burns at eight times the Sun's core temperature. 

The core of the Sun burns at 15 million degrees Celsius by nuclear fusion of hydrogen nuclei into helium, but the reactor reached a plasma temperature of 120 million degree Celsius for 101 seconds and 160 million Celsius for 20 seconds, reports Xinhua news agency. 

The reactor which is located at the Hefei Institutes of Physical Science of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has been designed to replicate the nuclear fusion process that occurs naturally in the sun and stars to provide almost infinite clean energy.

Nearly 300 scientists and engineers came together to work on this experiment. The facility includes a vacuum system, RF wave system, laser scattering system, and microwave system.

The experiment ran the nuclear fusion reaction, in which high levels of energy are produced without generating large quantities of waste.It is unlike the usual nuclear fission reaction in which the nucleus of a heavy atom is split into two or more nuclei of lighter atoms, the Global Times reported.

The shift to the nuclear experiment of this scale is China’s way of making its shift to clean energy resources.