Artificial Sun vs The Real Sun: Which Is Hotter?

Korea built a machine hotter than the Sun's core. But which one really wins?

KSTAR, Korea's "artificial sun", held a 100-million-°C plasma for 48 seconds (2024 record). The Sun's core is about 15 million °C, so that's almost 7x hotter. The Sun, though, has been burning for 4.6 billion years.

Why does a fusion reactor have to be hotter than the Sun? The Sun squeezes its core with enormous gravity. On Earth we can't, so we turn up the heat instead.