At a temperature of 2 billion kelvin, the oxygen there burns. Six months after the onset of oxygen fusion, it peters out. The fusion of oxygen produces silicon, which starts and ends fusion in a few months. The very last element produced in the heart of a massive star, created from the fusion of silicon, is nickel. The kind of nickel that’s produced is rather unstable; it doesn’t have the right combination of neutrons and protons. As soon as it forms it says, “Whoops, never mind, I was never invited anyway,” and decays into iron. More than an entire sun’s worth of iron is manufactured in a
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