AS102 Study Guide - Final Guide: Nucleon
Document Summary
Iron is element #56 there are another 36 elements to go before we get to. Recall that the fusion of lighter elements (such as we have been describing) means that fusing or joining such atoms together results, in each case, in a product that has less mass than the combining pieces. At the other end of the spectrum (uranium) the reverse process fission is the operative one. Here breaking apart big atoms results in products that together add up to less mass than the initial, big atom. In each case the leftover mass appears as energy according to. Well, iron is where these two processes meet on the periodic table. Iron has the lowest mass per nuclear particle of all nuclei and cannot release energy by either fusion or fission. Thus, once the fusion process results in the production of iron in a massive star it can go no further.
