Discover the cosmosEach day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.
Explanation:The hydrogen in your body and present in every molecule of water came from the Big Bang.
There are no otherappreciablesources ofhydrogenin the universe.
Thecarbonin your body was made bynuclear fusionin the interior of stars, as was theoxygen.
Much of the iron in your body was made duringsupernovas of stars that occurred long ago and far away.
Thegoldin your jewelry was likely made from neutron stars during collisions that may have been visible as short-durationgamma-ray burstsorgravitational wave events.
Elements like phosphorus and copper arepresent in our bodiesin only small amounts but are essential to the functioning of all knownlife.
Thefeatured periodic tableiscolor codedto indicatehumanity‘s best guess as to thenuclear originof all known elements.
The sites ofnuclear creationof someelements, such ascopper, are not really well known and are continuing topics of observational and computational research.
APOD’s main NASA site ismoving:Fromapod.nasa.govtoscience.nasa.gov/apod Tomorrow’s picture:Sun triple