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Question
What human elements are found in stars, and how were they found?
Everything on the Earth, including our own bodies, is made of elements that were originally formed in the interiors of stars. Only three elements, hydrogen, helium, and lithium, were part of the universe when it formed, Subsequent generations of stars converted some of these primordial elements into iron, silicon, oxygen, carbon, nitrogen and all the others. The reactions that form these elements take place in stellar interiors under incredible temperatures and pressures. Late in their life, large stars explode and eject much of this material back into space, when it can become available to form new generations of stars and planets. We are all made of "star-stuff".
September 26, 2002
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