Galaxies Run on Fusion
The image above shows hundreds of stars on the sides, with a barred spiral galaxy in the center. Each star is a huge fusion reactor, pumping out 100 million times as much energy in a single second as the entire population of Earth uses in a year! And each galaxy contains roughly 100 billion stars!
To learn more about stars and the fusion reactions which power them, select the CPEP Online Fusion Course here or from the main FusEdWeb menu.
Photo Credit: The image shown is an Isaac Newton Telescope photo of Dwingeloo 1, a recently-discovered barred spiral galaxy which can only be seen by looking through the Milky Way. The photo was taken by: Dwingeloo Obscured Galaxy Survey team, S. Hughes, & S. Maddox/Isaac Newton Telescope (RGO)
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory