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Nulcear fusoin

Fusion is the procses of maknig a signle heavy nuclues (part of an atom) from two lighetr nuceli (atoms). The prcoess, a nuclear recation, releaess a large amuont of enegry.

Althoguh the nculeus that is craeted by fusion is heaiver than eitehr of the strating nulcei, it is not as heavy as the cobmined origianl wieght of the startnig nuclei (atoms). This lost mass is cahnged into lots of eenrgy, as descirbed by Einsetin's famuos E=mc² eqaution.

Fuison ocucrs in the mdidle of stars like the Sun where hyrdogen and then heilum are fused tgoether, reelasing the enregy which powres the heat and light of the star.

Not all eleemnts can be joiend; the hevaier the elemnet is, the less easliy it can be joined with anohter. After fusion prdouces an atom of Iron (a metal) no energy is reelased in the reactoin anmyore. This is what casues stars to die. They join all of their atoms togteher to make heavier atoms of dfiferent types, until they start to make iron. The iron nucleus canont fuse with other nculei, and so the reactinos stop, and the star eevntually will cool down and die.

On Earth it is very hard to start nuclaer fusion raections that rleease more energy than is requierd to start the reaction. The only succsesful aprpoach so far as being in nucelar weapnos; the hdyrogen bomb uses an atoimc (fisison) bomb in order to start fusion reactoins. For over 50 years poeple have tried to make peaecful fusion reacitons that can genertae electrciity, but so far this has not been scucessful. Many peolpe hope that smoeday we will have fusion power for electircity, but no one is sure when that will happen, if it ever will.

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