Why Can Massive Stars Keep Making Heavier Elements?

How do higher core temperatures unlock successive stages of fusion?

Trace layered burning from lighter nuclei toward an iron-group core without implying every element follows one path.

A scientific artistic reconstruction of a turbulent red-orange massive star with a cutaway revealing nested hot plasma regions around a compact bright core. — Vastward scientific artistic reconstruction. The cutaway makes a modelled massive-star interior visible for learning; it is not a direct photograph, and the layer sizes, colours, and spacing are not to scale.

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