Within minutes of the Big Bang, conditions had cooled enough for the very first atoms—mostly hydrogen, helium, and a touch of ...

For the nuclear processes involved in both creating and burning deuterium, that’s where deuterium fuses with a proton to form helium-3, an uncommon, light, but stable isotope of the element helium.

The scientists accomplished this by isolating magnesium atoms using superfluid helium and initiating the production process with a laser pulse. This cluster formation and the associated energy ...