Eli5 Why can’t Stars use Iron in nuclear fusion?
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Iron have the lowest energy in its nucleus of all the elements. If you fuse hydrogen atoms into helium the resulting helium atom have less energy then the hydrogen atoms you started with so the rest of the energy is released into the star. As you fuse together elements up the periodic table you always end up with more energy left over until you get to iron. If you fuse iron and hydrogen for example the resulting cobalt require more energy to hold its nucleus together then the iron and hydrogen atom combined, so you need to put more energy into the fusion then you gain from it. It is still possible to do this, in fact that is how all the cobalt and other heavy elements are made. But it reduces the amount of energy in the star instead of increase it so this is a very short lived period in a stars life.
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