German scientists on Thursday, launched what is being billed as the world's largest artificial sun with the intention of conducting research on the creation of climate-friendly fuel.
March 21, 2017 photo engineer, Volkmar Dohmen stands in front of xenon short-arc lamps in the DLR German national aeronautics and space research center in Juelich, western Germany. The lights are part of an artificial sun that will be used for research purposes. (Caroline Seidel/dpa via AP)
In what has been described as "the world's largest artificial sun", Scientists in Germany have flipped the switch in a breakthrough on technology as they hope that it will help shed light on new ways of making climate-friendly fuel.
According to
Dailymail UK, the newly launched "Synlight" experiment is made up of 149 high-powered lamps totalling about 350 kilowatts, in Juelich, a small town in the western state of North Rhine Westphalia.
Starting on Thursday, scientists from the German Aerospace Center will start experimenting with this dazzling array to try to find ways of tapping the enormous amount of energy that reaches Earth in the form of light from the sun.
One area of research will focus on how to efficiently produce hydrogen, a first step toward making artificial fuel for airplanes.
The experiment uses as much electricity in four hours as a four-person household would in a year.