Address by Prof. P. Van der Kruit, President of ESO's Council

Details Address by Prof. P. Van der Kruit, President of ESO's Council Address by Prof. P. Van der Kruit, President of ESO's Council

Dec 2003

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2003msngr.114....3.&link_type=abstract

The Messenger, vol. 114, p. 3-3

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Scientific paper

We are children of the universe. Actually, we are children of the universe in a very strict sense. Look at our bodies. By weight we are made up for about a quarter or so of hydrogen. The rest is in other chemical elements, of which carbon, nitrogen and oxygen are the major contributors. In contrast, the Universe, when it was about three minutes old and sufficiently cool that atomic nuclei could exist, consisted for three-quarters of hydrogen and one quarter of helium. There was no carbon, no nitrogen, no oxygen or any other chemical element except traces of lithium and boron. We now know that the chemical elements that make up most of our bodies were formed by nuclear reactions in heavy stars that live for a very short while and blow themselves up as supernovae and release the heavy elements into the interstellar gas so that new planets and possibly life can be formed. We are stardust.

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