Posted on 11/28/2020 6:38:24 PM PST by Red Badger
Theory was first postulated in 1930s.
Scientists this week announced the landmark detection of elusive particles generated from the fusion of hydrogen in the Sun, confirming a nearly-100-year-old theory about the ways in which many stars generate energy.
In a paper published in Nature, a team of researchers called the Borexino Collaboration reported detecting the presence of neutrinos produced during the carbon–nitrogen–oxygen cycle of fusion deep within the Sun.
The scientists stated that the energy produced in the CNO cycle represents just a small fraction of the total energy output of our Sun, but “in massive stars, this is the dominant process of energy production.”
“This work provides experimental evidence of the primary mechanism for the stellar conversion of hydrogen into helium in the Universe,” the paper states.
That detection was made “using the highly radiopure, large-volume, liquid-scintillator detector of Borexino, an experiment located at the underground Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso in Italy,” the paper reports.
Recent technological improves to the detector allowed the scientists to more accurately detect the neutrinos in question.
They were surprised that the sun is a giant nuclear reactor? I wasn’t.
Okey Dokey....
We need to fix that. Radiation everywhere. Harmful to life. We need to stop this deadly radiation at its source. Only one way to do this and that is to shut down the reactions in the sun.
Sounds good.
Might as well be walkin’ on the Sun.
Does this mean that fusion power on earth is just 25 years away?
Better go there at night.
They just couldn’t prove it!.... 🤓
It’s been 25 years away fo 50 years!....................🤑
There are several fusion reactions going on in the sun and other stars. This detection is (probable) confirmation of one of them.
This is important as it backs a theory of what is going on in that complex system.
Nothing to do with fusion on Earth. I don’t think we can create the fusion reaction that generates these particular neutrinos. More important in figuring out astrophysics, stellar evolution, etc.
Discovery of solar particles produced by fusion… probably just the love of God... on the just and unjust.
Hmmm, what’d they do to the detector to goose its sensitivity?
*cough* last detector I remember reading about was in Northern Minnesota *cough*
Good neutrino detectors are just as interesting. They would allow communication directly through Earth, which isn’t possible with electromagnetic radiation. Applications could be submarine communication and faster stock market arbitration trading.
I wish these scientists could find myloan sock that I lost doing my laundry this weekend
Our sun generates almost 99% of its energy from a fairly straight forward fusion of hydrogen atoms. Less than 2% of its energy is thought to be generated by a process called the CNO cycle.
Almost 100 years ago two German physicists predicted that large massive stars generate most of their energy from the CNO cycle, which is hydrogen fusion that is catalyzed by Carbon-Nitrogen-Oxygen.
Since there is no practical way to observe fusion inside a star, we can only study the particles and the energy released by the fusion process.
CNO fusion was predicted to release a unique neutrino signature.
Because neutrinos have no charge and almost zero mass, they are really, really hard to detect, and CNO neutrinos are especially hard to detect, at least in part because they are relatively rare in Earth's cosmic neighborhood.
This experiment was carried out in a lab under a mountain in central Italy. A large stainless steel container, filled with an organic compound in liquid form, was used to create and measure CNO neutrino scintillations.
Three USA universities devised a method to purify the liquid organic compound to a level never achieved before, which made the experiment possible for the first time.
The last time I looked, it was considered something like acceleration, but I can't imagine how that could work, even considering additional dimensions and the suspension of time at a black hole. Can you?
For every lost sock in the dryer there appears a mismatched Tupperware lid in the kitchen.
LOL LOL LOL
The mysteries of the universe.
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