Iron

Iron (IPA: ) is a chemical element with the symbol Fe () and atomic number 26. Iron is a group 8 and period 4 metal. Iron is a lustrous, silvery soft metal. Iron and nickel are notable for being the final elements produced by stellar nucleosynthesis, and thus are the heaviest elements which do not require a supernova or similarly cataclysmic event for formation. Iron and nickel are therefore the most abundant metals in metallic meteorites and in the dense-metal cores of planets such as Earth.