And no, I'm throwing you a plot twist, I'm not referring to the big bang! Yes, obviously (if it happened), we were all and everything condensed into an infinitely small point that eventually exploded and became the world.
I'm talking about the matter that constitutes us, the materials we see around us, the metals of mobile phones, cars, our blood. The carbon of plants and our DNA. The water we drink and the oxygen we breathe.
Have you thought about what was created?
The answer is simple: In the heart of a star.
Gold, silicon, aluminum... Whatever you're using right now as you read this, you yourselves, the whole realm around us is made from materials that were created in the heart of a star long ago in our distant past.
The most abundant element in the universe is hydrogen. Hydrogen formed the first stars. In the core of stars, hydrogen fuses and transforms into other elements, primarily helium and lithium (which you have in the batteries of your mobile devices as you read this).
Oxygen is primarily produced through nuclear fusion in the interior of stars. During the life cycle of a star, when hydrogen in the star's core reacts under high pressure and temperature, it converts into elements like helium, helium into heavier elements like carbon and oxygen. As the star evolves, its outer layers may be displaced and dispersed into space, ejecting the oxygen produced within.
Iron is produced during the phase of coordinated nuclear fusion in the interior of stars and is one of the last elements produced in a star's core before it "runs out" of fuel. Iron production cannot be sustained through nuclear reactions, and when the star exhausts its iron, it typically explodes as a supernova, releasing the elements created throughout its lifetime, including iron, into space.
Therefore, these elements float in interstellar space within nebulae and over billions of years form planets. There they enter into the planet's life cycle and eventually into the chain of DNA, food chains, and within organisms.
So, all of us were once one... And in the end, the matter that constitutes us will return there: to the heart of another star. Because matter is neither lost nor created anew from nothing. It changes forms, evolves, and never remains stagnant. The inertia of matter, indeed, is a law, but for the existence of macromolecules and ultimately life, for us to be here and to speak, it seems that it does not apply in the case of living organisms.
Think about how unique it is that we are here now, discussing these things, while billions of years ago, the same atoms that make us up were being forged through nuclear explosions in the heart of a hot star. Nothing remains static over time. There is constant change, alteration, evolution. In everything. Everything flows.
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