ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Solar furnace of Uzbekistan

Okay, so imagine you have a toy car that runs on the sun's energy instead of batteries. This is sort of like how the Solar Furnace of Uzbekistan works, except on a much larger scale!

The Solar Furnace is a big building in Uzbekistan where scientists can experiment with using the sun's energy to do different things. They use a bunch of big mirrors called heliostats to reflect light from the sun onto one spot. When all the light beams meet in that spot, they become really hot - like a thousand degrees Celsius hot!

This heat can be used to do all kinds of things. For example, some scientists use it to melt metal and see how it behaves at super high temperatures. Others use it to make chemical reactions happen that couldn't happen at lower temperatures. And still others use it to study how different materials handle heat and light.

The Solar Furnace is a really cool way to study how the sun's energy can be used to do things that are helpful for people. It's like a big science toy that helps us learn about how the world works!