We are Stardust

Was watching a Science Channel show about how we and the universe came to be.

According to current theory all the matter and energy in the universe came from a point smaller than the nucleus of an atom that violently expanded about 13 billion years ago in what is referred to as ‘The Big Bang’. The idea that the whole universe was contained in so small a space is unimaginable not because it is wrong, but because our wonderful brains did not evolve to deal with such concepts. As an example try to imagine infinity, I can’t do it, but that’s because nervous systems developed in a world of finiteness. Evolution was more concerned with fight or flight or how to get lunch without being lunch than think about the origin of the universe, but what is remarkable is that we can do it nevertheless.

Anyway, the show said that way back when the proto-universe cooled enough to allow the formation of neutrons and protons out of things like quarks and their esoteric friends, hydrogen and helium formed. After a really long time these elements condensed into proto-stars. Slowly gravity condensed these stars and as they compressed they heated up until they got so hot they ignited into a fusion reaction uniting hydrogen atoms to form helium releasing massive amounts of energy. Think H bomb. As time went by, the star fused together larger and larger atoms up through the periodic table until it got to iron-- the fusion end of the line.

These massive stars then began to collapse since they no longer generated the energy to counter their crushing gravity. Eventually the star collapsed erupting in a super nova scattering most of its partial periodic table of elements through space.

In our case, one of these star’s stuff condensed into our sun and solar system. On Earth the atoms created in that exploded sun formed the molecules that evolved into life. We got a brain out of the deal that could think about where it came from and how it was created.

We are made of star dust.

Kinda gives you goose bumps, huh?