the.com/nucleosynthesis
Stars are furnaces that forge atoms, then die so you can be born.
means The process by which atomic nuclei fuse together inside stars (or in events like the Big Bang and supernovae) to build heavier elements from lighter ones.
from A 20th-century scientific compound, stitched from Latin-via-Greek 'nucleus' (little nut, kernel — the dense core of an atom) and Greek 'synthesis' (a putting together, from syn- 'together' + tithenai 'to place'). Physicists coined it as astrophysics matured enough to ask not just how stars shine, but how they cook — the term entered wide use alongside mid-1900s work explaining where elements heavier than hydrogen and helium actually come from.
- origin
- big bang made only hydrogen, helium, and traces of lithium
- the rest
- every heavier element cooked inside stellar cores
- gold and iodine
- require colliding neutron stars, not ordinary stars
- iron ceiling
- fusing iron absorbs energy instead of releasing it, killing stars