If stars can’t fuse iron, where do it and all other heavier elements come from?

Question

If stars can’t fuse iron, where do it and all other heavier elements come from?

In: 7

Answer 1

They can fuse it, it just *consumes energy* instead of producing it. And thats exactly what seems to happen. In the late stages of a star’s life, there is a lot of neutrons around due to some of the other fusion reactions, and over thousands of years, these neutrons can combine with iron and then it beta decays into cobalt, then it can happen with the cobalt, and so on.

Then there’s the neutron star fusion method, which *can’t* just be a supernova. There are not enough neutrons around. It has to be the combination of neutron stars, which does have the neutron density necessary.