This artificial sun held plasma at 100 million degrees Celsius for more than 20 seconds.
The KSTAR device is attempting to stabilize ultra-hot plasma using magnetic fields so that nuclear fusion power could be made a reality.
We would assume that nuclear fusion power would have to be completely stable to be used in a normal setting.
A researcher on the project, Yong-Su Na, revealed that longer periods of stabilization would be able to happen once the hardware for the fusion reaction device is upgraded.
This isn’t the first time that a fusion reactor has been able to achieve this level of stabilizing plasma.
In fact, back in 2021, the Chinese Academy of Sciences fusion machine held a temperature of 120 million degrees Celsius for 101 seconds.
The plan now is to build a machine that can hold the plasma for a lot longer. The researchers at KSTAR want to achieve holding plasma at over 100 million degrees celsius for over 300 seconds by 2025.
That does seem like a long time to wait, but these are huge strides in one day seeing nuclear fusion power being used.
What makes this KSTAR fusion reactor so special, is that it is a tomahawk-style reactor that merges atomic nuclei together to create a huge amount of energy.