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ImaLooser
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I thought all heavy elements came from supernovae, but a recent article by John Baez corrected my ignorance. There is a nice photo too at http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/diary/index.html#now
Yup, and you can tell where the element came from by the isotope signal.
s (slow)-process elements come from red giants
r (rapid)-process elements come from supernova (probably)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S-process
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R-process
And then there are the rare P and rP processes
One reason that much of the heavy elements *don't* come from supernova is that much of the supernova stays with the star. Most of the iron that gets formed by supernova ends up falling back into the neutron star (and we can tell that because supernova produced iron has a special composition that is rich in some iron-isotopes that are relatively rare on earth).
Is there any numbers of how much % of the mass of a star that is iron atoms? I mean for such stars that actually to manage to reach to fuse everything needed to make up iron.
By now I got a bit skeptic on my own knowledge. Do all stars who die from supernova fuse iron? Also did any star who reached fusion of any atom less massive than iron survived (I know they they die anyway) the supernova event?
Best Regards
Robin Andersson
Is there any numbers of how much % of the mass of a star that is iron atoms? I mean for such stars that actually to manage to reach to fuse everything needed to make up iron.
Do all stars who die from supernova fuse iron?
Also did any star who reached fusion of any atom less massive than iron survived (I know they they die anyway) the supernova event?
Not sure what you are asking here.
Sorry. Let's say we have this star of 4 solar masses, he(the star)is in his last dying year. What I know, not all massive stars, are massive enough to reach the temperatures to fuse atoms to create Iron. So before iron got created in the star, there was probably another heavy element. So, is it possible for stars (except white dwarfs and binaries) to go boom without any iron in its presence?