DR KATIE MACK
In December, the US Department of Energy made headlines worldwide with a fusion power breakthrough: for the first time, they created a reaction that produced more energy than the laser power that ignited it. While this was a major step forward, the energy to run the lasers was still a factor of 100 more than the energy produced by the reaction, so there’s a lot of work yet to be done. But it brings up some interesting questions: how does fusion power even work, and what does all of this have to do with the life and death of stars?