Why is the sun able to undergo fusion so easily, compared to us?

Question

I’ve read maybe it has something to do with gravity…? But we have gravity here on earth too.

And while the sun’s internal temperature is around 15M degrees celsius, apparently for us to replicate the fusion effect here on Earth, we need to superheat atoms to 100M degrees celsius. Why the difference?

In: 11

Answer 1

The gravity of the sun is about 28 stronger than here on Earth. This makes it so that the particles you are trying to fuse are way closer to each other in the sun than here on Earth. Because the particles are closer together, you need less thermal energy (a lower temperature) to get them to fuse.