WE ARE MADE OF STARS

 

Where do most of the elements essential for life on Earth come from?

 

The answer: inside the furnaces of stars and the explosions that mark the end of some stars’ lives.

The hydrogen in your body, present in every molecule of water, came from the Big Bang. There are no other appreciable sources of hydrogen in the universe. The carbon in your body was made by nuclear fusion in the interior of stars, as was the oxygen. Much of the iron in your body was made during supernovas of stars that occurred long ago and far away.

Stars are inside our bodies, we are made of stars.

Photo: star cluster NGC 7789, 8,000 light-years away toward the constellation Cassiopeia.

Source: NASA, Image source: https://apod.nasa.gov                                               Image Credit & Copyright: Guillaume Seigneuret