this post was submitted on 01 Sep 2023
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....I need to know more. We can just break open helium all Willy nilly? What's the biggest atom we can safely split?
Atoms lighter than iron take energy to split, and release energy when fusing. For atoms heavier than iron, it's the opposite.
And what happens with iron ?
You lose energy if you split or fuse it
It extinguishes the stars it forms in. Once you have enough Iron, and the amount is actually quite small compared to the rest of the mass of the star, that triggers a nova. This is due to Iron needing extra energy to either fuse or fission.
Close, the maximum binding energy per atomic mass unit is iron-56, but splitting heavier atoms does not guarrentee releasing energy. If you consider the graph of specific bonding energy against atomic mass, then also consider that you need two numbers that add up to the original mass, it is clear that you need approximately more than 100u to release energy on fission.