During which stage of a star's "life cycle" are the heavy elements made?

Question

During which stage of a star's "life cycle" are the heavy elements made?

Answer 1

All the elements heavier than iron (gold, uranium, ect.) happen when a supermassive star supernovas.  What causes a star to supernova is when it doesn't have enough energy to fuse its iron core, so what happens is the core of the star collapses on itself until it reaches a point that fusion of these other elements can occur and the star ultimately dies in a massive explosion (doesn't have enough gravity to hold itself together).  This creates all the heavy elements and sends them out in to space.  When these heavy elements become part of a planet, because of their density they sink to the center of the earth.  Then volcanoes and lava tubes bring these heavy elements to the surface in volcanic eruptions.  I live in Henderson Nevada which is surrounded by ancient volcanoes and a lot of metamorphic rock (rocks that have had their chemical composition changed by being heated by lava).  And I find a lot of heavy elements brought to the surface by volcanic eruptions, elements like gold, silver and iron.  Hope this helps answer your question.

Answer 2

This happens when a star becomes a giant star which ussally happens at the stars end life stars that are giants have younger life spans however without giant stars that burn hot enough to create the heavy elimates we could have never had life without them  

Answer 3

right before its midlife crisis.

thats when most people get heavy, so im assuming stars do too

Answer 4

Nova or supernova - the end of life.

Answer 5

as a star ages it creates increasingly denser elements. in the beginning of it's life it is composed primarily of hydrogen. the hydrogen atoms fuse to form helium. these fusion reactions continue untill iron is formed. once a certain ratio of iron is achieved the temperature is not high enough to continue the fusion reaction and the star collapses.

Answer 6

Depends on where you draw the line where "this element is light" and "this one is heavy."

But I think it's "death" part of it's life is the answer you're looking for.