Main Page | See live article | Alphabetical index In astrophysics, silicon burning is a nuclear fusion reaction which occurs in massive stars. It only occurs at ?×108K. 28Si + 28Si → 56Ni + &gamma 56Ni → 56Fe + 2 e+ + 2 νe at temperature above 109K -> photons become too energetic -> photodissociation or photonuclear reactions. production of element heavier than iron are endothermic and are exclusively produced by neutron capture in the violent final stage of stellar evolution (see: Supernova nucleosynthesis, r-process, s-process and p-process). This article is from Wikipedia. All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.