South Korea's 'artificial sun' sets new world record, lights up at 100 million degrees for record 20 South Korea's 'artificial sun' sets new world record, lights up at 100 million degrees for record 20 seconds A superconducting fusion device, also known as the Korean artificial sun, set the new world record as it successfully maintained high temperature over 100 million degrees (Celsius) for a record 20 seconds. advertisement UPDATED: December 29, 2020 13:55 IST The Korea Superconducting Tokamak Advanced Research (KSTAR). (Photo: National Research Council of Science & Technology via phys.org) Comfortably setting a new world record for fusion, South Korea managed to light up an artificial sun at over 100 million degrees for a record 20 seconds. In comparison, the core of the Sun burns at only 15 million degrees Celsius.