You’re a Star…and Then Some

Don’t get the big head, we all are. Regardless of the origin of the Universe, whether it was swept into existence by the glorious hand of an omnipotent deity or blasted from a pin tip into instant perpetuity…or both…the path to us is amazing.

Carl Sagan observed, “If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe.”  His point was that everything comes from a complex and lengthy line of circumstance…or that home cooking is no big deal.  Regardless, no matter how simple or basic the object, its truest origin is extensive.

Ironically, the ingredients to that extensively contrived pie, and everything else we see around us, is made of just three things: protons, neutron and electrons.  Those three minuscule particles can be split into yet smaller particles but we’ll stop with them.

Flashing back to grade school science you’ll remember, elements are made of atoms; the atom being the smallest piece of an element.  Atoms are made of three ingredients, protons, neutrons and electrons.  The same way you can combine sugar, butter and flour to make dozens of desserts, you can combine protons, neutrons and electrons to make over a hundred different kinds of atoms (elements).  Like a cosmic Lego set our incredibly diverse world is made almost entirely from just three simple ingredients.

Protons, neutrons and electrons formed shortly after the Big Bang and then combined into the smallest elements; hydrogen, a bit of helium and maybe a touch of lithium.  Eventually stars formed, exploded, more stars formed from the leftovers, they exploded and more formed and all the while, bigger and bigger atoms were built.

Smaller stars convert hydrogen into more helium. Medium sized stars like our Sun convert helium to carbon, oxygen and other mid-sized atoms.  And bigger stars produce bigger elements like silicon and titanium all the way up to iron (an atom of which weighs about fifty-five times more than hydrogen).

But to get to the largest three-quarters of the elements it took a little more drama.  Enormous explosions of massive stars created ridiculous amounts of energy fusing protons, neutrons and electrons into colossal (relatively speaking) atoms.  An average star exploding is to this type of supernova what a hiccup is to childbirth.

Now let’s look at us.  About a tenth of our body is composed of elements that were around just after the Big Bang: hydrogen, helium and lithium.  The bulk of the rest is the product of average stars: oxygen, carbon, nitrogen, etc.  And the last little but essential bit is heavier elements coming from those massive supernovas.  And so it is with an apple pie, a dash of Big Bang residue, a few cups of star dust and a pinch of supernova remnant and you’ve got a homemade dessert.

So the next time you’re feeling a little down on yourself, maybe you said something off color at supper, perhaps you passed wind in church, keep this in mind: it’s taken billions of years and megatons of energy just to make you.  You’re a star…and then some.