Did You Know: Stars and You

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Did you know that you are made from stardust?

Credits


Produced by the Space Telescope Science Institute’s Office of Public Outreach in collaboration with NASA’s Universe of Learning partners: Caltech/IPAC, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, and Sonoma State University.
 
  • Hubble Space Telescope visualization of Westerlund 2: NASA, STScI
  • Animation of the Crab Nebula supernova: ESA/Hubble (M. Kornmesser & L. L. Christensen)
  • Hubble Space Telescope image of Crab Nebula: NASA, ESA, J. Hester and A. Loll (Arizona State University)

Written by Leah Ramsay
Designed by Craig Anderson, Leah Hustak, and Dani Player
Editorial and design input from Claire Blome, Margaret W. Carruthers, Dr. Brandon Lawton, and Timothy Rhue II
Music courtesy of Music for Non-Profits

Transcript


(DESCRIPTION) 
 Title, Did You Know? Stars and You 

(SPEECH) 
 [ELECTRONIC CELESTIAL MUSIC] 

(DESCRIPTION) 
 We drift through space toward an expanding and colorful cloudy nebula with stars floating by. Text, Did you know you are made from stardust. While beautiful, deep space can feel very disconnected from our lives on Earth, 

The nebula rotates as we glide closer to the center. Text, But everything that we know of Earth is made from stardust, including you. 

The edges of the nebula are orange and red. The cupped center is purple, blue and white. Text, Stars are like factories that churn out the building blocks of matter, elements. 

A bright glowing star appears in the center of indigo space surrounded by thousands of smaller stars. Text, When massive stars run out of raw material to fuse elements, they collapse. The star glows much brighter, expands, and fills space with pure white color blocking everything else out. Text, The resulting explosion disperses the elements out into space, where they can be incorporated in forming planets. 

We move closer to the exploded star with a bright white center and encircled in rippled yellow and orange glowing material. Text, Many of the elements essential to life on Earth, including carbon, oxygen, calcium, and iron, form in the cores of stars. 

The exploded star continues to expand and dim. A matrix of yellow, green, orange, and red glowing material is intertwined. Text, So when you look at amazing images of deep space, remember you are made from the same stuff.