The Hydrogen Fusion Process

The first step of the Hydrogen fusion process: a nucleus of Deuterium (2H) is formed from two protons with the emission of an antielectron and a neutrino. Click on image for full size (2K JPEG)

The important thing to remember is that this fusion cycle releases energy in the core of a star. This energy keeps the star hot and makes it shine (like our Sun does).

This whole process happens in three steps. There are animations of the three steps below to help you understand this process!

The first step of the Hydrogen fusion process: a nucleus of Deuterium (2H) is formed from two protons with the emission of an antielectron and a neutrino. Click on image for full size (2K GIF)

In the basic Hydrogen fusion cycle, four Hydrogen nuclei (protons) come together to make a Helium nucleus. This is the simple version of the story. There are actually electrons, neutrinos and photons involved that make the fusion of Hydrogen into Helium possible.

The important thing to remember is that this fusion cycle releases energy in the core of the star. It is this fusion cycle that generates energy in our Sun. We know of this energy when we feel hot on Summer days!

This whole process happens in three steps. There are animations of the three steps below to help you visualize this process!

The first step of the Hydrogen fusion process: a nucleus of Deuterium (2H) is formed from two protons with the emission of an antielectron and a neutrino. Click on image for full size (2K GIF)

The basic Hydrogen fusion cycle involves four Hydrogen nuclei (protons) and two electrons and yields a Helium nucleus, two neutrinos and six photons. This process occurs in three steps: the first one is the Fusion of Hydrogen into Deuterium. Here two protons collide, one proton turns into a neutron emitting an antielectron and a neutrino.
The remaining proton is bound to the neutron forming a heavy Hydrogen (Deuterium) nucleus while the antielectron just produced will annihilate with an electron generating two high-energy photons.

The second step is the the formation of Helium-3: a proton is captured by a nucleus of Deuterium emitting a photon and forming then a ³He nucleus.

The third step is recombination of two Helium-3 into one nucleus of Helium with the emission of two protons.
Note that steps 1 and 2 each happen twice for each time step 3 occurs. In this process the total net energy released is to 26 MeV.