Neil deGrasse Tyson Quotes

Big Bang gave us hydrogen and helium. We couldn't make people out of hydrogen and helium. So we're made out of exploding stars.

All the atoms we are made of are forged from hydrogen in stars that died and exploded before our solar system formed. So if you are romantic, you can say we are literally stardust. If you are less romantic, you can say we're the nuclear waste from fuel that makes stars shine.

The universe starts off with the Big Bang theory, and the first thing that emerged from the Big Bang is essentially hydrogen and then helium. And that's what combusts in stars. Finally, stars implode, and they build heavier elements out of that. And those heavier elements are reconstituted in the heart of other stars, eventually.

We are made of star stuff. For the most part, atoms heavier than hydrogen were created in the interiors of stars and then expelled into space to be incorporated into later stars. The Sun is probably a third generation star.

We are made out of stardust. The iron in the hemoglobin molecules in the blood in your right hand came from a star that blew up 8 billion years ago. The iron in your left hand came from another star. We are the laws of chemistry and physics as they have played out here on Earth and we are now learning that planets are as common as stars. Most stars, as it turns out now, will have planets.

We are 'nuclear waste' from the fuel that makes stars shine; indeed, each of us contains atoms whose provenance can be traced back to thousands of different stars spread through our Milky Way.

Even your chin is made up of exploded stars.

You could think of the galaxy as a sort of stove with lots of pots on it, and the pots are the interstellar medium, like a chicken broth getting stronger with every reduction. Every time a supernova goes off and sends its heavy elements out into the interstellar medium, we cook up a stew that's better and better for solar systems and life.

Ancient stars in their death throes spat out atoms like iron which this universe had never known. ... Now the iron of old nova coughings vivifies the redness of our blood.

Earlier generations of stars in the galaxy could well have had planets. But really, there was only hydrogen and helium to work with, so they'd all be gas giants and not small, rocky planets.

Most stars just fuse hydrogen into helium, but larger stars can fuse helium into other elements. Still larger stars, in turn, fuse those elements into slightly bigger ones, and so on.

It can be very hard to know the history of a particular star, but once in a while, we get lucky and find stars with chemical compositions that likely came from in-falling planets.

We are made of starstuff.

We are bits of stellar matter that got cold by accident, bits of a star gone wrong.

You couldn't be here if stars hadn't exploded, because the elements - the carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, iron, all the things that matter for evolution - weren't created at the beginning of time. They were created in the nuclear furnaces of stars, and the only way they could get into your body is if the stars were kind enough to explode. So, forget Jesus. The stars died so that you could be here today.

Humans are made from nuclear ash of dead stars

The molecules that comprise our body are traceable to the crucibles of the centers of stars.These atoms and molecules are in us because, in fact, the universe is in us. And, we are not only figuratively, but literally, stardust.

Iron is the final peal of a star’s natural life.

The stars are laboratories in which the evolution of matter proceeds in the direction of large molecules.

Every carbon atom in every living thing on the planet was produced in the heart of a dying star.

The nitrogen in our DNA, the calcium in our teeth, the iron in our blood, the carbon in our apple pies were made in the interiors of collapsing stars. We are made of starstuff.

When very large stars die, they create temperatures so high that protons begin to fuse in all sorts of exotic combinations, to form all the elements of the periodic table. If, like me, you're wearing a gold ring, it was forged in a supernova explosion.

The objects that are of moderate energy, like our sun or most of the stars that we see in the night sky with the naked eye, are objects in which relatively moderate energy processes are taking place.

We are made out of stardust. The iron in the hemoglobin molecules in the blood in your right hand came from a star that blew up 8 billion years ago. The iron in your left hand came from another star.

Hubble showed us the marvel and majesty of stars being born.