The elements that are produced from silicon fusion - elements like cobalt, nickel and iron - are more stable than the heavier elements that they'd conceivably fuse into. Again, the pressure drops, but this time there's nowhere to go. In that final phase of silicon-burning, core temperatures can reach ~3 billion K, some 200 times the hottest temperatures currently found at the center of the Sun.Īnd then the critical moment occurs: the core runs out of silicon. When carbon becomes scarce in the core, it again contracts and heats up, leading to neon fusion (which lasts about a year), followed by oxygen fusion (lasting for a few months), and then silicon fusion (which lasts less than a day). LeeĬarbon fusion can produce elements such as oxygen, neon, and magnesium, but only takes hundreds of years to complete. When the star explodes, the vast majority of the outer layers absorb neutrons rapidly, climbing the periodic table, and also get expelled back into the Universe where they participate in the next generation of star and planet formation. concentrated toward the center of the star. As it nears the end of its evolution, heavy elements produced by nuclear fusion inside the star are.
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