L'origine des elements
The hydrogen in your body, present in every molecule of water, came from the
Big Bang.
There are no other
appreciable sources of
hydrogen in the universe.
The carbon in your body was made by
nuclear fusion
in the interior of stars, as was the
oxygen.
Much of the iron in your body was made during
supernovas of stars that occurred
long ago and far away.
The gold in your jewelry was likely made from
neutron stars during collisions that may have been visible as short-duration
gamma-ray bursts
or gravitational wave events.
Elements like phosphorus and copper are
present in our bodies in only small amounts but are
essential to the functioning of all known
life.
The featured periodic table is
color coded to indicate
humanity's best guess as to the
nuclear origin of all known elements.
The sites of nuclear creation
of some
elements, such as
copper,
are not really well known and are continuing topics of observational and computational research.