Joint European Torus

The Joint European Torus, or JET for short, is a big machine that scientists use to study the behavior of a special kind of matter called plasma. This machine is so big that it would be much taller than a house if you stood it up!

To understand what JET does, first we need to know what plasma is. You know how everything is made up of tiny things called atoms? Well, when we heat up an atom really, really hot, some of its particles can escape and form a plasma. Plasma is like a soup of charged particles, moving around very quickly.

Scientists are interested in plasma because it is the same stuff that makes up the sun, the stars, and even lightning! However, studying plasma can be difficult because it is very hot and can damage things around it.

That’s where JET comes in! JET uses a special kind of magnetic field to keep the plasma from touching the walls of the machine, which would melt them. In this way, scientists can keep the plasma safe while they study it.

JET helps scientists to understand many things about plasma, like how it reacts to different kinds of energy and what materials can withstand the heat. All of this knowledge can help us with things like creating new energy sources and understanding how the sun works.