"Chinese artificial sun" sets new world record

Chinese scientists have set a new world record of achieving a plasma temperature of 120 million degrees Celsius for a period of 101 seconds in the latest experiment on Friday, a key step toward the test running of a fusion reactor.

The breakthrough was announced by Gong Xianzu, a researcher at the Institute of Plasma Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (ASIPP), who is in charge of the experiment conducted in Hefei, capital of east China's Anhui Province.

The experiment at the experimental advanced superconducting tokamak (EAST), or the "Chinese artificial sun," also realized a plasma temperature of 160 million degrees Celsius, lasting for 20 seconds.