thermonuclear fusion

The esteemed bard was on to something: a star’s color, it turns out, is mostly a matter of how hot its “fire” gets—though it gets that heat through thermonuclear fusion in its core and not by actually burning anything.

There is simply not enough setup to explain the distinction between the atomic fission weapons developed during the Manhattan Project and the thermonuclear fusion weapons advocated by physicist Edward Teller and then Atomic Energy Commission member Lewis Strauss after the war ended.

The thermonuclear fusion within can become so energetic that instead of holding up the outer layers, the photons generated in the star’s core spend their energy creating matter-antimatter pairs, which can explosively annihilate to destroy the star from the inside out, no implosion required.

While most elements in the universe are forged inside stars through thermonuclear fusion, the heaviest elements, such as gold, platinum or uranium, need a special creation process.

These conditions help kickstart thermonuclear fusion.