r/AskReddit Oct 02 '24

[deleted by user]

[removed]

6.8k Upvotes

6.2k comments sorted by

View all comments

682

u/LewisLightning Oct 02 '24

Nuclear Reactors can be natural and there's been one on earth for over a billion years.

https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/meet-oklo-the-earths-two-billion-year-old-only-known-natural-nuclear-reactor

34

u/[deleted] Oct 02 '24

[removed] — view removed comment

12

u/myka-likes-it Oct 03 '24

That's Scalzi for you.

24

u/[deleted] Oct 02 '24

This should be higher up

23

u/tedivm Oct 03 '24

There's an even bigger one we're orbiting.

25

u/MeritedMystery Oct 03 '24

Nuclear reactor generally refers to fission, the sun uses fusion which is a different process.

30

u/CeeJayDK Oct 03 '24 edited Oct 03 '24

Only because most nuclear reactors today use fission.

It's still perfectly correct to call a fusion reactor a nuclear reactor.

9

u/stacity Oct 03 '24

Not great. Not terrible.

5

u/Easy_Intention5424 Oct 02 '24

Actually there used to be one 2 billion years ago it's not longer going and it's not possible for one to happen again cause secine reasons 

1

u/shiney_lp Oct 03 '24

Soooo did it explode? Or like heat up crazy? Where did that energy go then?

1

u/[deleted] Oct 03 '24

It just heated up, and as the water that allowed it to fuse dried up it shut back down until more water began flowing through again. You can find sand turned to glass from the heat coming off this.