Question

Compare and contrast how energy is produced by fission in a nuclear power plant and how it is produced in stars (such as our sun), (fusion) showing similarities and differences

Answer 1

Basically, we need to compare the following concepts. Fission and fusion.

Both fission and fusion are nuclear reactions that produce energy, but the applications are not the same. Fission is the splitting of a heavy, unstable nucleus into two lighter nuclei, and fusion is the process where two light nuclei combine together releasing vast amounts of energy.

And, we could notice that:

- The main difference between these two processes is that fission is the splitting of an atom into two or more smaller ones while fusion is the fusing of two or more smaller atoms into a larger one.

- A similarity could be the fact that both reactions are nuclear reactions.

The following Venn's diagram could represent some similarities and differences of these reactions: