Like all stars, our Sun is powered by the fusion of hydrogen into heavier elements. Nuclear fusion is not only what makes stars shine, it is also a primary source of the chemical elements that make the world around us. Much of our understanding of stellar fusion comes from theoretical models of atomic nuclei, but for our closest star, we also have another source: neutrinos created in the Sun’s core.
Whenever atomic nuclei undergo fusion, they produce not only high energy gamma rays but also neutrinos. While the gamma rays heat the Sun’s interior over thousands of years, neutrinos zip out of the Sun at nearly the speed of light. Solar neutrinos were first detected in the 1960s, but it was difficult to learn much about them other than the fact that they were emitted from the Sun. This proved that nuclear fusion occurs in the Sun, but not the type of fusion.
Additional fusion method in sun’s core detected
The sun’s main form of fusion is the pp-chain, but scientists have now detected a second form of fusion happening in the sun’s core, according to findings published in Nature. Researchers devised a method to filter neutrino signals and found some that suggest the presence of a cycle in which helium is produced from a reaction sequence involving carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen and oxygen.
Click title above to open this science report. What is fusion? What are neutrinos? Where do all the elements that make up the world around us come from?
