[Calvin Locke]

In the astronomy course I took about 25 years ago, they said that iron doesn't burn too well.

As the fusion process starts running out of the lighter elements, and begins to burn iron, the star changes dramatically.
Supernova in the large stars, red giant in the smaller.

So I find it hard to believe that our star has any appreciable percentage of iron at this time.

Shouldn't spectrography be able clarify the issue?

Wouldn't it would change all sorts of assumptions about the mass of the Sun?

[Vidalia]

You are right, it melts first and then begins to vaporize if the heat is exponentially increased.

What we see in the old films of the Bessemer process is the slag burning. Much like the common sense of the congress these days.