An Etymological Dictionary of Astronomy and Astrophysics

The nuclear reactions in a shell around a star’s core that continue after the fuel in the core itself has been exhausted. As the fuel is progressively exhausted, the shell moves outward until it enters regions too cool for the reactions to continue. For example, after the exhaustion of hydrogen in the core, helium burning might take place in the core with a shell of hydrogen burning surrounding it. Stars may have more than one region of shell burning during their stellar evolution, each shell with its own nuclear reactions. → hydrogen shell burning; → helium shell burning.

See also: → shell; → burning.