Carbon Cycle

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Carbon Cycle

A sequence of atomic nuclear reactions and spontaneous radioactive decay which serves to convert matter into energy in the form of radiation and high-speed particles, and which is regarded as one of the principal sources of the energy of the sun and other similar stars.
This cycle, first suggested by Bethe in 1938, gets its name from the fact that carbon plays the role of a kind of catalyst in that it is both used by and produced by the reaction, but is not consumed itself. Four protons are, in net, converted into an alpha particle and two positrons (with accompanying neutrinos); and three gamma-ray emissions are emitted directly in addition to the two gamma emissions that ensue from annihilation of the positrons by ambient electrons. This cycle sets in at stellar interior temperatures of the order of 5 million degrees Kelvin.
An even simpler reaction, the proton-proton reaction, is also believed to occur within the sun and may be of equal or greater importance.

References

This article is based on NASA's Dictionary of Technical Terms for Aerospace Use