In November of 2018, Chinese scientists announced their work on an artificial sun. Their goal is to develop the same nuclear fusion process that occurs within the sun (the conversion of hydrogen into helium) on Earth to ultimately create a source of unlimited clean energy.
One of the biggest challenges of this project is to reach the extremely high temperatures required for fusion to occur. Nonetheless, the scientists have announced they plan to finish the artificial sun by the end of 2019 due to such great success even in early stages. The machine is a tokamak, consisting of strong magnetic fields and plasma (made mostly of electrons and ions). Scientists have reached electron temperatures of 100 million degrees Celsius, which is comparably hotter than the core temperature of the sun of around 15 million degrees Celsius. This high of a temperature is necessary, according to scientists, even though it’s hotter that the sun because of other impacting conditions. In order to achieve fusion, scientists believe they must also have an ion temperature of the same magnitude. Currently, ion temperatures are only at about 50 million degrees Celsius. The next step is to increase this temperature, because ions are what actually generate energy during the fusion process. If China does successfully achieve nuclear fusion on earth, it would be a truly world-altering advancement.
To read more, visit this article from the New York Post.
Campbell's Astronomical Analysis 
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