Carl Sagan famously said, “We are made of star-stuff,” but even he didn’t realize just how far that star stuff traveled before it got to us.
New Hubble data has shown at least some of the carbon that now makes up our bodies may once have drifted hundreds of thousands of light-years out of the galaxy and back.
Elements heavier than helium are forged in the hearts of stars, eventually released into the cosmos when those stars explode as supernovae. These ingredients are then fed into the next generation of stars and planets.
So, we might be intergalactic aliens, eh?