The idea of we are made of star dust has been in the collective imagination for a few decades, ever since he uttered the amazing phrase that says that “the cosmos is also within us. “We are made of the same substance as the stars.” And although it may seem like pure scientific poetry, the truth is that Sagan knew what he was talking about; the Essential elements of life were created billions of years ago with supernova explosions.
The undeniable connection with the cosmos
Looking up at the night sky opens up a whole world of possibilities in our imagination, the fact of feeling connected to the immensity of the void that surrounds us is one of the most extraordinary experiences we can live. The mental structure breaks due to the inability to understand how there is an infinite Universe of which we are a part in this very remote place. And suddenly, the existential emptiness and the meaning of life come together in the same dichotomous spiral.
Added to this experience is the thought that we are probably made of stardust; Yes, we are connected to the cosmos after all. Science has supported these assertions on different occasions. In 2010, professor Chris Impey of astronomy at the University of Arizona, categorically stated that all energy is a product of stellar interactions and therefore comes from the stars.
In 2019, other research reaffirmed the idea that we are made of stardust thanks to the observation of a supernova explosion. It turned out that this star, which exploded 55 million years ago, is not only one of the largest that humanity has ever seen, but it is also the richest in calcium of all, so it was concluded that
97% of our body is stardust
A more recent study that obtained its data thanks to the Sloan Digital Sky Survey exploration program has managed to detect all the elements of matter par excellence that formed life on Earth, in at least 150 thousand stars within the Milky Way. Carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus and sulfur, which constitute 97% of the mass of the human body comes from the immensity of the cosmos and therefore, the idea that we are made of stardust is once again reaffirmed.
“For the first time we can study the distribution of elements throughout the galaxy. The elements we measure include the atoms that make up 97% of the mass of the human body,” said Sten Hasselquist of New Mexico State University.
The early Universe, just after the Big Bang, was made up mostly of hydrogen and just a small amount of helium, which were responsible for forming the most primitive stars in the cosmos. But then the magic began to happen and as the dense cores of the stars heated up, reaching unimaginable pressures, the set of conditions then caused the atoms within the cores to be crushed and then form more complex elements. In this way, hydrogen was transformed into helium, then this mutated until it became carbon and so on until forming all the elements of which we are now made.
After all, Carl was always right and research proves it. As poetic and illusory as it may sound, the idea that we are made of stardust is as real as the cosmos itself.