China claims new fusion record with its "artificial sun" nuclear reactor

China's Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST) is one of a number of promising nuclear fusion research devices in operation around the world, and over the past few years we've seen it take some impressive steps forward. Chinese state media is now reporting that scientists working on the project have achieved a new world record by holding plasma of 120 million degrees Celsius for 101 seconds in their latest round of experiments, edging closer to the long-pursued goal of clean and limitless energy.

The idea behind nuclear fusion research is to recreate the process that the Sun uses to produce monumental amounts of energy, where intense heat and pressure combine to produce plasma in which atomic nuclei fuse at incredible velocities. Scientists are working with a range of experimental devices to trigger and study these reactions here on Earth, but experts consider donut-shaped tokamaks, like the EAST at China's Hefei Institutes of Physical Science of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the most promising approach.

This metal torus features a series of magnetic coils designed to hold superheated streams of hydrogen plasma in place for long enough for the reactions to occur. In 2016, we saw scientists at EAST manage to heat hydrogen plasma to around 50 million °C (90 million °F) and sustain it for 102 seconds. The team then upped the ante to 100 million °C (180 million °F), more than six times hotter than the Sun's core, in 2018, holding it there for around 10 seconds.

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