00:02The reason why stars shine.
00:05Just like our Sun, it consists of a plasma, a gas that is millions of degrees hot.
00:11In the plasma, the atoms are broken down into their constituent parts.
00:17Atomic nuclei, which usually repel each other, begin to fuse.
00:22Energy is released. This must be achieved.
00:25But how?
00:26You need high temperature to get the particles to fuse together, so that's one condition.
00:32You also need high density, so that's how many particles you have in a given volume.
00:37So high temperature plus high density means you have lots of particles fusing together,
00:41which means you're releasing lots of fusion power.
00:44However, the third parameter is the energy confinement time,
00:47and that is a measure of how efficiently the plasma holds onto energy.
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