Scientists are hoping to exploit these enormous explosions by somehow harnessing Fusion energy some day, but in the mean time, they are trying to create a device for creating Fusion, and it just so happens that the easiest way of creating Fusion is through a star.
First of all, you may be thinking to yourself right now: aren't the centers of stars really, really hot? Well, yes, and that’s the whole point of the project; Fusion, which is basically when the very center of stars create constant explosions caused by colliding two Hydrogen atoms (the most abundant element in the universe), this collision causes the Helium element, and a single Neutron to be formed in the center of the star. The lonely neutron, in turn, is then released as pure energy, or heat.
First of all, you may be thinking to yourself right now: aren't the centers of stars really, really hot? Well, yes, and that’s the whole point of the project; Fusion, which is basically when the very center of stars create constant explosions caused by colliding two Hydrogen atoms (the most abundant element in the universe), this collision causes the Helium element, and a single Neutron to be formed in the center of the star. The lonely neutron, in turn, is then released as pure energy, or heat.
Obviously, creating a star on earth would be very problematic for many reasons; the atmosphere would light on fire; our sun could fit about 108 earths inside of it; another “sun” in our solar system would completely ruin the earth’s gravitational rotation, etc., if it weren’t for the fact that the scientists are going to create the star from a speck of fuel a little bigger than a pinhead.
So how much energy are we expecting to get out of this? Well, to put it into perspective: it will use a laser that focuses 1,000 times the electric generating power of the United States (or 10 billion times more energy than a house hold light bulb releases) into one spot for one billionth of a second, and it will release at least 10 times the amount of energy put into it.
It’s an amazing form of energy, and as soon as we learn to harness it, we will be able to “say goodbye” to fossil fuels. The only question is: what will happen to the human race? With all of us not needing to do anything physically straining (due to free energy via Fusion), will the only thing useful for use to do become using our brains to create new machines and designs to help us explore the universe, giving us all we ever wanted, thus creating the ultimate utopia, or will we all turn into “couch-potatoes”, and not do anything productive other than reproducing and colonizing?
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