Refueling Our Sun: Holding Back Eternity
Science & Futurism with Isaac Arthur
00:00
The Odds of Two Protons Colliding and Forming a Deuteron in a Supernova
The odds of two protons colliding and forming a deuteron is less than one in many trillions when these collisions happen. The average proton will kick around the Sun's core for 9 billion years, colliding almost constantly with other protons and big nuclei before successfully merging with another proton to become aDeuteron. A Deuteron plus helium 3 can also produce a helium 4 atom plus a lone proton too. Key thing is that none of this ever happens from an observer standpoint, these particles are moving insanely fast in a very dense environment. This is why you don't get stars much bigger than our own Sun - they would be torn apart by their own immense
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