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Old 22-04-2008, 03:27 PM
DJDD
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Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: Melbourne, Australia
Posts: 936
Quote:
Originally Posted by renormalised View Post

Nuclear reaction occur at varying rates within the core. Simple (first stage) PP reactions, like the ones occurring in the Sun don't take very long at all, a few milliseconds for some parts of the reaction. However the general conversion of hydrogen into helium can take sometime, several million years. Some parts of the PP reaction are quite slow.

Thanks for the detailed reply, renormailsed. yet another example of the value of this forum.
Perhaps I was being overly romantic, hoping to see a star "light up"...

i always thought the fusion reaction would be very quick but after reading your response I looked up PP reactions on wikipedia for some further light reading...

cheers,
DJDD
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