At the center of our solar system is the sun, a turbulent sphere of incandescent plasma that has burned for the past 4.6 billion years, providing the energy that powers almost every living thing on Earth. The means of creating this energy is relatively simple, but also mind-boggling: Every second, the sun transforms some 600 million tons of hydrogen into helium through a process called nuclear fusion, converting tiny bits of matter into almost unfathomable amounts of energy.
