The ties that bind us all

We are stardust.

That's not just meant figuratively. If you look to the stars for inspiration and perspective, or are simply awed by the vastness and mysteries of the universe, look within. As astrophysicist and host of "Cosmos" and "Star Talk" Neil Degrasse Tyson explains, we - that is, all life on Earth - developed from cosmic dust. In a way, we are the aliens we wonder about.

Tyson explains:

"The atoms of our bodies are traceable to stars that manufactured them in their cores... billions of years ago. For this reason, we are biologically connected to every other living thing in the world. We are chemically connected to all molecules on Earth. And we are atomically connected to all atoms in the universe."

Connected, made of the same cosmic stuff changing slowly over three and a half billion years to form life. All living beings, along with the oceans and mountains and ants.

In his down-to-earth speaking style, the lecturer and planetarium director said in an interview with Charlie Rose that the single greatest gift that astrophysics has brought civilization is the discovery in 1957 by four scientists that the elements on the periodic table owe their origin to thermonuclear fusion in the core of stars. Put simply, that was the fusion of light elements under high temperatures coming together to make heavy elements.

Sometimes these elements stay put, but these particular stars exploded and scattered across the galaxy. All those rich elements - carbon (the building block of all Earthly life), nitrogen, silicon, oxygen, and so on - scattered into giant gas clouds which then collapsed, and formed next generation star systems.

One of them was ours. Thus the very ingredients which comprise life as we know it are directly traceable to stars.

"We are not only figuratively, but quite literally stardust." - Neil Degrasse Tyson

Sholeh Patrick is a columnist for the Hagadone News Network. Contact her at [email protected].