Why is energy released when the nuclear reactions take place?
Answer:
the "nuclear force" that holds together big atoms like uranium or plutonium is released when the atoms are "split" apart. that's the fission reaction in nuclear power plants.
even more force is released when atoms are "fused" together. like 2 hydrogen atoms fused into one helium atom. that's the fusion reaction in the sun and other stars, also in hydrogen bombs.
In Chemistry, molecules that are unstable tend to react with other molecules. When this happens, lots of energy is released, so the reaction is called an exothermic reaction. The same thing is true for nuclear reactions.
This is how energy released when the Nuclear reaction takes place.
Nuclear reactions are not like chemical reactions. The processes for releasing energy are different and also much more powerful. The sun produces energy primarily by fusing hydrogen atoms, which makes helium atoms and also releases both energy in the form of radiation of a variety of types. This is very complicated stuff and you would not be able to understand it without taking years of specialized engineering and science. I don't understand it all that well either.
In the sun the nuclear fusion take place deep in the interior of the star and releases a lot of deadly radiation, which is absorbed by outer layers of the sun. That converts it to heat and light, which eventually shines on the Earth. Raw sunlight does contain a fair amount of deadly radiation that is largely absorbed by the Earth's atmosphere. Even so some damaging radiation makes it through, which is why we can get a sun burn and skin cancer.
If we did the same kind of nuclear reactions on Earth, we would have to deal with the deadly radiation that is trapped within the sun and which our atmosphere protects us from.
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