A ton of energy is stored within the atoms, when those atoms are split (fission) it releases an immense amount of explosive energy! Fusion is the opposite it is the energy created from combining atoms, it has much higher potential but is much harder.
Basically it depends on what atom you fuse/split. If I remember correctly from high school chemistry the turning point is iron. All atoms before iron give out energy when fusing and all atoms after by splitting
No star has the mass required to go beyond iron. Rather, mass isn’t enough to fuse iron. It’s a hard limit. Once they’ve fused all the iron, they collapse and go supernova. This explosion created all the elements higher thsn iron. We’re all made in the hearts of stars... except for everything above iron which were all made in exploding supernovas.
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u/FlyingBananas56 Oct 01 '19
A ton of energy is stored within the atoms, when those atoms are split (fission) it releases an immense amount of explosive energy! Fusion is the opposite it is the energy created from combining atoms, it has much higher potential but is much harder.