A pocketful of Sun in Livermore
The Sun and other stars are powered by nuclear fusion. 2 atoms of hydrogen come to a violent union to produce a helium atom, a neutron and some energy. The temperatures and pressures in the centre of the Sun were produced, if only for a few nano-seconds at the National Ignition Facility (NIF) at Lawrence Livermore National Labs (not too far from my home) on the 5th of December, 2022. It had been about 70 years in the making, and the net energy gain achieved was hailed by some as a breakthrough as revolutionary as landing on the Moon. Solar temperatures and pressures are required to overcome the Coulombic or electro-static repulsion of the hydrogen atoms (really hydrogen isotopes deuterium and tritium - and their fusion is called D-T-fusion) and get their strong nuclear forces to take over and bind the constituent D-T protons and neutrons into one resulting Helium atom. There are several ways to achieve this temperature and pressure. The first one, is inside a thermo-nuclear ...