Wish upon a ‘star in a jar’: The promise of nuclear fusion

WHAT makes the Sun shine? The answer lies in a simple reaction deep in its core.

At temperatures of 15 million deg C and under huge gravitational forces, hydrogen atoms within the Sun collide with each other to form helium. A tiny bit of mass is converted into an immense amount of heat and light.

This process, known as nuclear fusion, produces enough energy to keep the stars shining for billions of years. Our Sun itself has been burning bright for about 4.5 billion years (and don’t worry, it still has another five billion years to go).