Nucleosynthesis Quotes

“Although the first stars of the Universe could not have formed planetary systems, the process did not take long to get underway. Because massive stars are short-lived, the first billion years of the Universe already had time for 1,000 generations of production of the heavier elements. Observations show that the early universe was already a quite dusty place. Although massive stars do not live long enough to host planetary systems where life is likely to emerge, they are essential to producing the elements that lower-mass systems use to build habitable worlds. The Milky Way galaxy, our home, formed not long after the Big Bang, and has been building its stock of heavy elements ever since. Most of this galactic chemical evolution remains internal to the galaxy, although galaxies do sometimes collide and exchange material. Over the past thirteen billion years of nucleosynthesis in the Milky Way, there has been ample time for thorough mixing across the galaxy. Thus, our Solar System incorporates ingredients from a mix of myriad expired stars, most of which have been processed multiple times through short-lived stars. Every breath you take includes oxygen atoms from thousands of different stars that have lived and died in our galaxy over the past thirteen billion years.”
― Raymond T. Pierrehumbert, Planetary Systems: A Very Short Introduction