We are but shadows and dust. We are “billion-year-old carbon”. We are made of dust left after the Big Bang. This is a very simple yet elegant idea that I’ve heard too many times in my life. However, the more I come across it, the more I’m amazed by its simplicity and power. It used to be a small thought in my head and it turned eventually into a part of my worldview.
Stars are boiling somewhere far away from us. They boil with whirling chemical reactions synthesizing carbon, oxygen, iron. They emit myriads of atoms and photons sending light and matter across the universe according to physics laws.
Image Credit: Pedro M. Rosario Barbosa
The Big Bang was the beginning of everything. A huge explosion created unimaginable amount of matter producing various elements, lots of them but not all. In the middle of 20th century, a group of scientists managed to prove that apart of lightest elements all other inhabitants of periodic table were synthesized by stars. The Big Bang only started the process and stars continued it, creating everything heavier than helium, hydrogen, and other light elements.
Our Sun is just a small dwarf that keeps most of the riches to himself greedily cooking some rare elements. However, there are much more generous stars. Huge suns that reach their final form and release all their riches via immense explosions. These explosions are responsible for the very existence of many elements like uranium. Even shiny gold would have been unknown to us, if giant suns were not as generous as they were.
Amazingly, atoms that our bodies are made of were likely processed by multiple stars. We are successors of billions years of cosmic forging, made of matter way older than our mother Earth.
This is an idea that many astronomers are quite proud of. Truly, we are the remnants of the event older than anything that we know. We are the true aliens who descended from stars. However, it is not enough to just know this. We need to spread the word and let other know and be reminded that we are made of stardust! The delivery of this knowledge doesn’t have to be complicated.
Instead of writing poems about it or composing studies as gigantic as US Law, we could simply start talking to strangers. This could be amazing.
“Hello, I’m Steve, nice to meet you.”
“Hey, Steve. Have you heard that you are stardust?” Try to not sound offensive while calling someone stardust.
Imagine how more elegant you would sound, if you start bashing your hometown football team for underperformance: “Oh, you! Pieces of stardust!”
Imagine the faces of your friends, when you bring snacks for the party and announce loudly: “these chips and beer are made of the same material as we are – stardust!”
Imagine a world where huge billboard read: “Superduperelectronics Inc. – We Are Made of Dust!”
There are so many creative ways to spread this simple message. An uplifting message that would definitely make someone’s day much brighter. What if every newspaper, every magazine, every internet forum, and every social network started to talk about it? What if their headlines and messages of the day were about us being stardust?
I would love to live in a world where people are happy to share this knowledge and to remind each other daily that we are more than just living creatures but vessels full of cosmic history.
So true! :)
PS: you choose a very nice and clear picture from Barbosa. I may reuse it for educational purposes!
So far half the ingredients of atoms that make up humans only occur in nature as a result of a supernova explosion . . .
So while science is far from completely certain of things many elements seem to only have been possible due to the impossible conditions of huge stars destruction ! ! !