Elements up through iron are made inside stars!

The Sun shines because it is making helium out of hydrogen.

sun_skylab.gif (113302 bytes)

 


 

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Inside the Sun, four hydrogen nuclei combine to form one helium nucleus.

Every second,
100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 helium atoms
(1038) are created by this nuclear fusion process!

 


Four hydrogen nuclei weigh more than a helium nucleus ...

Some mass is missing ...

0.7% (7/1000) of the hydrogen's mass
is converted into energy for each
helium nucleus formed!

 

Einstein's E = mc2
powers the Sun
by converting 4.7 million tons
of its mass into energy
every second!

 

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