APOD: 2026 September 14 – Where Your Elements Came From

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								Astronomy Picture of the Day

			Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.			

								Where Your Elements Came From

						Explanation: The hydrogen in your body and present in every molecule of water came from the Big Bang. There are no other appreciable sources of hydrogen in the universe. The carbon in your body was made by nuclear fusion in the interior of stars, as was the oxygen. Much of the iron in your body was made during supernovas of stars that occurred long ago and far away. The gold in your jewelry was likely made from neutron stars during collisions that may have been visible as short-duration gamma-ray bursts or gravitational wave events. Elements like phosphorus and copper are present in our bodies in only small amounts but are essential to the functioning of all known life. The featured periodic table is color coded to indicate humanity's best guess as to the nuclear origin of all known elements. The sites of nuclear creation of some elements, such as copper, are not really well known and are continuing topics of observational and computational research.APOD's main NASA site is moving: From apod.nasa.gov to science.nasa.gov/apodTomorrow's picture: Sun triple						

										Date:
										
											September 14, 2026											

										Credit:
										
											NASA GSFC's SVS											

										Authors & editors:
										
											Robert Nemiroff, Jerry Bonnell, Cecilia Chirenti, Keighley Rockcliffe											

										A service of:
										
											ASD at NASA / GSFC,NASA Science Activation & Michigan Tech. U.											

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Source: https://science.nasa.gov/image-article/apod-2026-september-14-where-your-elements-came-from/