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What is the name of the process by which stars fuse hydrogen via carbon catalysis?

  • The CNO cycle
  • The proton-proton chain
  • The triple-alpha process

The answer is The CNO cycle. Dominant in heavier stars.

CNO cycle

In astrophysics, the carbon–nitrogen–oxygen cycle, sometimes called Bethe–Weizsäcker cycle after Hans Albrecht Bethe and Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker, is one of the two known sets of fusion reactions by which stars convert hydrogen to helium, the other being the proton–proton chain reaction, which is more efficient at the Sun's core temperature. The CNO cycle is hypothesized to be dominant in stars that are more than 1.3 times as massive as the Sun.

Wikipedia · CNO cycle