What is Carbon Burning?
The carbon burning process is a nuclear reaction that happens in the core of massive stars under conditions of tremendous temperature and pressure. Carbon burning only initiates near the end of a star’s life. For a star to eventually build up enough pressure in its core to initiate carbon burning, it must must contain at least four solar masses at its birth. The carbon burning only begins after large portions of the star’s hydrogen and helium has been burned. The most abundant element in the universe is hydrogen. So, most stars begin their lifetimes made up mostly of hydrogen. As nuclear fusion ignites in the core of a young star, the hydrogen slowly starts to burn away, its atomic nuclei fused into helium through the p-p chain — in stars the mass of the Sun or less — or the CNO cycle —in more massive stars. This is the nuclear reaction that generates the Sun’s heat and light that we see when we step outside every day. Depending on the size of the star, it burns its nuclear fuel at a d
