Astranthropoi – Dionysis P. Simopoulos July 15, 2020 – Posted in: Magazine – Tags: , , , ,

Introductory note of Dionysis P. Simopoulou, Honorary director Eugenidei Planetariou for the #2 issue of the journal How it works

Reading the lead article in the issue you hold in your hands, my mind almost automatically went to Carl Sagan (1934-1996) and what he had described to us from time to time about the creation of life. As this charismatic popularizer of science mentions in one of his books, the first living cell on Earth appeared about 4 billion years ago, while its direct descendants run throughout our body today in the form of blood cells in our veins and arteries. And not only! Because, as modern biologists tell us,[1] more than half of the cells that make up our bodies are NOT human cells. Our bodies are, of course, a whole society, but without all these other micro-organisms we could not live a moment, not a second.

In addition, each of our human cells has 400 billion molecules, which perform millions of different activities with the trillions of atoms of which they are composed. The total chemical activity that takes place inside our cells is truly incredible. Biologists estimate that a million billion billion actions are performed every moment that passes. Numerically, we are talking about a number which consists of the unit followed by 24 zeros. In one thousandth of a second, that is, our body has performed ten times more activities than the number of stars that exist in the Universe.

HOW IT WORKS #2

And as if all that weren't enough, consider this: the body of an average human is made up of 7,000 trillion trillion atoms; that number is equal to 7 followed by 27 zeros. Of this vast number of atoms, 62% is hydrogen, a chemical element created (along with most of helium) at the birth of the Universe 13.8 billion years ago. Which means that two-thirds of the individuals that make up our body are 13.8 billion years old! The remaining 90 or so chemical elements found freely in the Universe were born inside stars, in their thermonuclear reactions and death explosions.

Which means that if you cut a flower, or taste a fruit, or caress your face, you are actually touching a star. Because all these, and everything else around us, are pieces of some star. Our Sun, our Earth, and everything on it were created from astromaterials ejected billions of years ago by some catastrophic stellar supernova explosion. All the matter in our bodies, all the chemical elements we contain (except hydrogen of course) were made in the "hell" of such stellar deaths. Matter created from elements hurled into space by supernova explosions.

This means we are astrohumans created from chemical elements made in the deadly explosions of supergiant stars. Aliens who watch distant supernovae explode and provide materials for the creation of new stars, new planets, and new species of life. In other words, the Universe is nothing more than a musical symphony whose notes are atoms in incredibly complex combinations, although they are based on simple physical laws. Everything that happened on Earth could have happened countless times in the past, or even in the future, in the vastness of the Universe. For planets, stars, galaxies, and the existence of life are but variations of the same theme. Because without supernova explosions there would be no planets and satellites. Because without supernovae there would be no Earth, no rocks and pebbles, no plants and animals. Because without supernova explosions, neither you nor I would exist.