ABSTRACT
Fusion will continue to be the energy source of the whole universe. The stars, among them our Sun, will continue to shine for billions of years. In the centre of the Sun the average time for a proton to undergo a fusion reaction with another proton to produce a deuterium is of the order of 1011 years, which makes the whole proton cycle extremely slow and the time scale for the consumption of the proton fuel immensely long. On a related time scale new stars will be born under the influence of gravitational forces, creating new systems of planets and in the process of formation possibly also new life.
