We are all stars...

Slowly expanding the entire universe shares a common set of elements. At the start of the early universe, when the stars were rushing away from each other growing in numbers and growing in speed, the only elements were hydrogen and helium. It was the stars that made all of the other natural ones, the lighter elements within the stars fusing to create heavier elements right at the core of the stars where it’s hot and pressurised. Just imagine all those atoms colliding, faster and faster, collision after collision, at speeds high enough to stop the electromagnetic repulsion of nuclei in a frenzy of nuclear fusion.

Just imagine as you look up into the night sky, separated by vast distance and by vast time, all those stars creating more elements as they die and splutter, coming together and falling apart. So many of those stars you see out there aren’t there at all any more. They’re already dead, their element making finished, just an echo in the fifty billion stars of our galaxy within the fifty billion galaxies that are tumbling around out there wherever and whatever there is.

Just imagine the stars churning out new elements as they pass – copper and carbon, silicon and silver, lithium and lead, and who knows maybe even some that they haven’t presented yet.

Everything made by stars and everything made of stars. The screen you are looking at, the seat you are sitting on, the floor that seat rests on, the air in the room around you, the food digesting in your stomach, and you, and me. We are all made of stars.

Next time you look into the night sky think about that. All those stars burning away and out - birthing, living, dieing, becoming dust, reforming into something else, someone else.

Makes me feel very small and vast at the same time; I’m made of stars.