Now, you know the process of how the sun generates its energy and lives but let me explain to you what exactly is being fused together. FYI, this is what Tony fuses together, as well.
I’m sure most of you do know what hydrogen is - the first element in the periodic table; it consists of one proton and one electron. The electron itself orbits the nucleus similar to how planets orbit the sun. So, in a hydrogen nucleus, a single proton exists and there are zero neutrons. Before I go into the reaction itself, let me introduce a term : Isotopes. Isotopes are two or more types of atoms that have the same number of protons but different number of neutrons - remember, DIFFERENT number of NEUTRONS.
Deuterium and tritium are isotopes of hydrogen - how they’re formed, I will come back to - where they each have one proton like hydrogen but deuterium has one neutron and tritium has two neutrons. Lastly, helium - there’s nothing much to say except for it contains 2 protons and 2 neutrons in its nucleus. Oh, and it also makes you sound funny if you breathe it in - not relevant here but still important.
Like I promised: the formation of hydrogen’s children - sorry, isotopes. In the Sun, two colliding hydrogen nuclei (protons) fuse into a deuterium nucleus. A third hydrogen nuclei collides with the deuterium nucleus to make a tritium nucleus. This cycle goes on and on and on and on.... eventually, deuterium and tritium fuse together to form helium, releasing energy and 2 neutrons. Please do look at the image below (Figure 1) - you’ll get a better sense of the reaction.
Figure 1: Reaction of Deuterium and Tritium
Don’t get fooled - It’s not as easy as the way I described it. This happens in the sun for a reason. Two hydrogen nuclei fusing together is basically two protons fusing together, and we’ve learned throughout our lives - opposites attract and likes repel. In this likes attract, and you maybe thinking - Oh this defies the laws of physics, this is false, this doesn’t make sense. But it does make sense.
In like charges, positive and positive for example, there is a force that causes them to repel (move away from each other) and it is the same for opposite charges; there is a force that pulls them closer to each other. This force is called electrostatic force (also known as the Coulomb force) and is simply defined as the force between charged bodies. Now, for like charges that are repelled due to this force, an external force or energy greater than the electrostatic force is required for them to come closer. This is also described as overcoming the Coulomb barrier. This barrier is an energy barrier resulting from electrostatic interaction that two nuclei must overcome in order to approach close enough to undergo nuclear fusion. Now, this external force can be in the form of speed, pressure, gravity, or temperature..
Let me share with you, certain characteristics that makes the sun THE SUN.
Figure 2: Earth and Sun comparison
1, 300, 000 planet Earths can fit inside of it.
The Sun weighs about 333,000 times as much as Earth and greater the mass, greater the gravitational force. To make it easier in numbers, Earth’s gravity is 9.807m/s2 and the Sun’s is 274m/s2. 274....
The sun’s core temperature is 15 million degrees Celsius. And we think 34 degrees Celsius is hot.
With a core temperature of 15 million degrees Celsius, the Sun’s sheer gravitational force crushes protons together to achieve nuclear fusion. This is what I mean by creating a star/sun on Earth - to even come close to what the Sun does is.... and Tony Stark did that (to some extent) while being held captive. Oh and all of this is just to get hydrogen to fuse with itself. We also want to harness its energy with sustainable fusion reactions... “How do we sustain this?” - I suppose would be your question. Before answering this, it is important for you to understand certain mathematical equations and terminologies that are essential to the basics fusion. Ugh maths again, I know - but it’s interesting, trust me there is no mention of the quadratic formula.