Humans just generated nuclear energy akin to a star

PO1 William "Chip" Nagel thanks for the most informative read and share.

PO1 William "Chip" Nagel
..."Fusion, the main reaction that powers stars, occurs when two atoms fuse their nuclei together, releasing an outburst of energy in the process. In labs, physicists can channel an immense amount of energy through laser beams to trigger fusion, but it takes much more energy than what you get out of it—hardly a viable energy generator. For nuclear scientists, the ultimate goal is ignition, when energy from fusion surpasses the energy fed into the process.

Physicists at the National Ignition Facility (NIF) at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California focused 192 laser beams on a tiny fuel pellet of heavy hydrogen (deuterium and tritium) about the size of a peppercorn. The fusion they triggered released 1.35 megajoules of energy, about 70 percent of the energy inputted. This is the highest yield the lab has ever achieved so far, eight times greater than NIF’s previous record set in the spring, and 25 times greater than experiments from just three years ago.

“Demonstration of ignition has been a major scientific grand challenge since the idea was first published almost 50 years ago,” said Imperial College London physicist Jeremy Chittenden in a statement.

Nuclear scientists from the university are helping to analyze the NIF data. He added that experiments like these will not only open up the possibility for fusion as a mass energy source, but allow physicists “to probe the conditions in some of the most extreme states in the Universe, including those just minutes after the Big Bang.”...

That is so cool! Looks like a pre-warp core reactor outta the star trek universe.