4 ms·
>If you fused into something bigger, it would still be more efficient to split that atom and fuse it's nucleons into more Iron. Of course, but that doesn't eas
by Gauge_Irrahphe 5y ago
>If you fused into something bigger, it would still be more efficient to split that atom and fuse it's nucleons into more Iron.
Of course, but that doesn't easily happen, as the nucleons are already bound together into heavier nuclides.
In fact I guess that might happen in supernovas: The main sequence burns into lead, which is then reconstituted into the iron-nickel mixture that we know from iron meteorites, which also releases energy due to the higher average binding energy per nucleon, but needs extreme conditions to occur.
- XorNot 5y agoExcept in a star anytime you get two particles interacting enough to potentially fuse, that's potentially a fission event as well. There's no rule which says any given nuclear interaction is fission or fusion: that's what we conclude after it happens. So in a star creating regular fusion events, even an errant heavier nuclei is going to eventually be decayed down to Fe (or head off to become a heavy element in the upper crust).
- Gauge_Irrahphe 5y agoThat just doesn't happen. We know that elements are stable. It doesn't normally happen that e.g. gold spontaneously explodes into iron, you'd need the extreme conditions inside a supernova to make that happen.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]