Pena-Guerrero, Maria A.Leitherer, ClausDe Mink, SelmaWofford, AidaKewley, Lisa2021-05-192021-05-190004-637Xhttp://hdl.handle.net/1885/233363The cosmological origin of carbon, the fourth most abundant element in the universe, is not well known and a matter of heavy debate. We investigate the behavior of C/O to O/H in order to constrain the production mechanism of carbon. We measured emission-line intensities in the spectral range from 1600 to 10000 Å on Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS) long-slit spectra of 18 starburst galaxies in the local universe. We determined chemical abundances through traditional nebular analysis, and we used a Markov Chain Monte Carlo method to determine where our carbon and oxygen abundances lie in the parameter space. We conclude that our C and O abundance measurements are sensible. We analyzed the behavior of our sample in the [C/O] versus [O/H] diagram with respect to other objects such as DLAs, neutral ISM measurements, and disk and halo stars, finding that each type of object seems to be located in a specific region of the diagram. Our sample shows a steeper C/O versus O/H slope with respect to other samples, suggesting that massive stars contribute more to the production of C than N at higher metallicities, only for objects where massive stars are numerous; otherwise, intermediate-mass stars dominate the C and N production.application/pdfen-AU© 2017. The American Astronomical Society.galaxies: evolutiongalaxies: starburstGalaxy: abundancesH II regionsultraviolet: galaxies Supporting material: figure sets201710.3847/1538-4357/aa88bf2020-11-23