Energy from the stars

The international ITER project is setting out to store the energy of stars in a reactor. To meet this challenge, scientists must be able to measure the properties of matter in fusion. Researchers have just successfully tested some sensors that are necessary for the ITER prototype. The scientists' ambition is to keep matter with a temperature of several million degrees contained here on Earth. Using stars as a model, they want to produce energy by fusing hydrogen to form helium. The main difficulty consists in maintaining matter in this state - called plasma - while avoiding any contact with the installations, which would melt them. To achieve this, the ITER reactor project will contain the percolating energy of the plasma using magnetic fields.