• ooterness@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          4
          ·
          3 months ago

          Fusion turns hydrogen into helium, releasing massive amounts of energy in the process.

          The opposite might be possible, i.e., using massive amounts of energy to split helium into hydrogen. But there’s no reason to do so, and it’s not something that happens naturally at any significant scale.

          It’s all about the nuclear energy binding curve.

          • frezik@midwest.social
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            2
            ·
            3 months ago

            Proton emission does happen, and that’s just a positive hydrogen ion waiting to steal an electron from something else.

            You could say that everything came from fusing hydrogen in the first place, and so the hydrogen being created here is just returning to its original form.