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Reflection

By US Desk
31 January, 2025

The Prophet (S.A.W) said, “If anybody has to take an oath, he should swear only by Allah.”

Reflection

BITS ‘N’ PIECES

Narrated by Umar (R.A)

The Prophet (S.A.W) said, “If anybody has to take an oath, he should swear only by Allah.” The people of Quraish used to swear by their fathers, but the Prophet said, “Do not swear by your fathers.”

Sahih Bukhari, Volume 5, Book 58, Number 177

DID YOU KNOW?

China’s ‘artificial sun’ has set a new record.

A nuclear fusion reactor in China, dubbed the "artificial sun," has broken its own world record for maintaining super-hot plasma to bring humanity one step closer to near-limitless clean energy.

Chinese state media reported that the Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST) nuclear fusion reactor maintained a steady, highly confined loop of plasma — the high-energy fourth state of matter — for 1,066 seconds on January 20, 2025, which more than doubled its previous best of 403 seconds.

Reflection

Nuclear fusion reactors are nicknamed "artificial suns" because they generate energy in a similar way to the sun — by fusing two light atoms into a single heavy atom via heat and pressure. The sun has a lot more pressure than Earth's reactors, so scientists compensate by using temperatures that are many times hotter than the sun.

Nuclear fusion offers the potential of a near-unlimited power source without greenhouse gas emissions or much nuclear waste. However, scientists have been working on this technology for more than 70 years, and it's likely not progressing fast enough to be a practical solution to the climate crisis. Researchers expect us to have fusion power within decades, but it could take much longer.

EAST's new record won't immediately usher in what is dubbed the "Holy Grail" of clean power, but it is a step towards a possible future where fusion power plants generate electricity.

EAST is a magnetic confinement reactor, or tokamak, designed to keep the plasma continuously burning for prolonged periods. Reactors like this have never achieved ignition, which is the point at which nuclear fusion creates its own energy and sustains its own reaction, but the new record is a step towards maintaining prolonged, confined plasma loops that future reactors will need to generate electricity.