Stellar Nucleosynthesis

Each fusion stage requires a higher temperature than the last because heavier nuclei carry larger Coulomb barriers. As the core ash from one stage builds up, gravity compresses and heats it until the next reaction ignites.

Heavier fuels burn dramatically faster — H lasts millions of years, Si just a single day. Once iron forms, fusion can no longer release energy and the core collapses in under a second.

Lower-mass stars stop early. The Sun will fuse only H and He, then shed its envelope as a planetary nebula — leaving a carbon-oxygen white dwarf.

Common materials — carbon, iron, nickel — are abundant because they sit at energy minima of stellar fusion. The iron peak is where every massive star ends.

Rare materials — technetium, ruthenium, polonium — require explosive r-process synthesis. They are signatures of neutron star mergers and supernova remnants, which is why they cluster around the galaxy's most violent regions.

The Iron Peak hand-in materials and exotic super-heavy elements in jumponium recipes trace back directly to the physics shown here.