As strange as this sounds, your body’s elemental composition- the bare basic molecules it is made up of, might have traveled to you from some of the most distant ancient stars.
In a groundbreaking revelation, researchers at the SDSS, one of the foremost authorities in the field, have successfully mapped the most critical chemical elements found in the human body to the millions of stars across the Milky Way Galaxy.
Using the revolutionary APOGEE spectrograph that can see through galactic dust, scientists have traced 97% of the primary elements that constitute our bodies- Carbon, Hydrogen, Nitrogen, Oxygen, Phosphorous and Sulfur to the stars in our galaxy.
With the use of prism-like dispersion of starlight into its constituent spectra, scientists can accurately predict the chemical composition of a star by studying the near infrared component of the electromagnetic spectrum. Infrared radiation is immune to the interstellar dust it has to pass through before it reaches the earth from its source. This means that we can see many more stars than we could using ordinary visible light! This is the true power of the APOGEE system.
The major component of our bodies is oxygen, which, interestingly, has been mapped to the galaxy’s inner stars that are older than the others are. The study has many interesting implications, for it is now possible to predict exactly when life accumulated all elements it needed to set our bodies in motion!
The best part is that the extensive catalog that documents the abundance of chemicals across the galaxy has been publicly released and could be studied by anyone. So, what are you waiting for? Go grab the data and trace the journey your own body’s atoms made hundreds of thousands of years ago, from maybe that tiny shining ancient star in the inner galaxy!
So, what are your thoughts about life and its deeper implications? Where do you think it all began? Share your thoughts (I'm all ears!) and do not forget to pass this information on if you liked!