There’s more to the lyrics of the classic Moby tune than you think.
There’s more to the lyrics of the classic Moby tune than you think.
In 1973, the popular astronomer Carl Sagan said, “We are all made of star-stuff.” But it’s more than just a poetic sentiment – science points out that all the elements in the periodic table and, by extension, us, originated from stars. How? As astrophysicist Karel Schrijver explains to the National Geographic:
“When the universe started, there was just hydrogen and a little helium and very little of anything else. Helium is not in our bodies. Hydrogen is, but that’s not the bulk of our weight. Stars are like nuclear reactors. They take a fuel and convert it to something else. Hydrogen is formed into helium, and helium is built into carbon, nitrogen and oxygen, iron and sulfur – everything we’re made of.”
Not only that, stars continue to explode, so some of the elements in our bodies could be as old as the universe, while others only landed on earth hundreds of years ago. Pull out that little bit of trivia at your next gathering and get ready to leave your friends #mindblown.
