I just finished watching an excellent National Geographic TV show, Birth of the Universe. It gives a very understandable explanation of how a cosmic "assembly line" produced all the atoms we see around us, over the course of billions of years after the Big Bang.
My favorite line was by a professor whose name I didn't get. He was talking about how all heavier-than-iron elements — including gold — were forged in supernovae explosions. He said: "If it weren't for exploding stars, Paris Hilton wouldn't have anything to wear [...] she wouldn't have any bling."
The show is on again tomorrow night at 1 a.m. and Saturday at 2 p.m. (Eastern time in both cases). Definitely worth setting your DVR for.
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