What is the duration of the carbon-burning phase in the post-main sequence evolution of high-mass stars?
Answer
Only a hundred years
Massive stars accelerate through all evolutionary phases once core hydrogen is exhausted. As they proceed to fuse progressively heavier elements—such as carbon, neon, oxygen, and silicon—the timescale for each successive burning stage shrinks dramatically. The text explicitly notes that the carbon-burning phase, which precedes the final stages leading up to iron formation, might last for a mere hundred years. This extreme haste, where stages that take millions of years in lower-mass stars conclude in centuries or less, is driven by the core reaching the necessary high temperatures for the next fusion stage very quickly.
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