WEBVTT 00:00:01.680 --> 00:00:08.200 What is the most astounding fact you can share with us about the Universe? 00:00:08.200 --> 00:00:12.000 The most astounding fact 00:00:12.000 --> 00:00:14.803 is the knowledge 00:00:14.803 --> 00:00:20.000 that the atoms that comprise life on Earth 00:00:20.000 --> 00:00:23.637 the atoms that make up the human body 00:00:23.637 --> 00:00:30.618 are traceable to the crucibles that cooked light elements 00:00:30.618 --> 00:00:34.249 into heavy elements in their core 00:00:34.249 --> 00:00:36.520 under extreme temperatures and pressures 00:00:36.520 --> 00:00:40.000 These stars, the high mass ones among them 00:00:40.000 --> 00:00:43.283 went unstable in their later years 00:00:43.283 --> 00:00:50.892 they collapsed and then exploded scattering their enriched guts across the galaxy 00:00:50.892 --> 00:00:55.655 guts made of carbon, nitrogen, oxygen 00:00:55.655 --> 00:00:59.323 and all the fundamental ingredients of life itself 00:00:59.323 --> 00:01:03.117 These ingredients become part of gas cloud that 00:01:03.117 --> 00:01:08.828 condense, collapse, form the next generation of solar systems 00:01:08.828 --> 00:01:16.102 stars with orbiting planets, and those planets now have the ingredients for life itself 00:01:16.102 --> 00:01:19.108 So that when I look up at the night sky 00:01:19.108 --> 00:01:24.200 and I know that yes, we are part of this universe 00:01:24.200 --> 00:01:30.640 we are in this universe, but perhaps more important than both of those facts 00:01:30.640 --> 00:01:34.748 is that the Universe is in us. 00:01:34.748 --> 00:01:38.446 When I reflect on that fact, I look up- 00:01:38.446 --> 00:01:41.062 many people feel small because they're small and the Universe is big- 00:01:41.062 --> 00:01:48.717 but I feel big, because my atoms came from those stars. NOTE Paragraph 00:01:48.717 --> 00:01:51.785 There's a level of connectivity. 00:01:51.785 --> 00:01:56.292 That's really what you want in life, you want to feel connected, you want to feel relevant 00:01:56.292 --> 00:02:01.160 you want to feel like a participant in the goings on 00:02:01.160 --> 00:02:03.834 of activities and events around you 00:02:03.834 --> 00:02:09.120 That's precisely what we are, just by being alive...