Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST)

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In news- China’s Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST), an advanced nuclear fusion experimental research device, set a new record after it ran at 216 million degrees Fahrenheit (120 million degrees Celsius) for 101 seconds.

About China’s ‘artificial sun’ EAST-

• For another 20 seconds, the “artificial sun” also achieved a peak temperature of 288 million degrees Fahrenheit (160 million degrees Celsius) for another 20 seconds.
• The sun’s core only reaches about 15 million degrees Celsius, which means the reactor was able to touch temperatures that are 10 times hotter than that.
• The reactor is located at the Institute of Plasma Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (ASIPP) in Hefei, China. 
• Its purpose is to replicate the process of nuclear fusion, which is the same reaction that powers the sun.
• It is one of three major domestic tokamaks that are presently being operated across the country, the other two China is currently operating are the HL-2A reactor as well as J-TEXT. 
• EAST first became operational in 2006. 
• It is part of the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) facility, which will become the world’s largest nuclear fusion reactor when it becomes operational in 2035. 
• The project includes the contributions of several countries, including India, South Korea, Japan, Russia and the United States.

• The next goal for the scientists behind the experimental reactor is to maintain the high temperature for a long period of time. 

China is not the only country that has achieved high plasma temperatures as, in 2020, South Korea’s KSTAR reactor set a new record by maintaining a plasma temperature of over 100 million degrees Celsius for 20 seconds.

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