Star Dust

(Editor's Note:  In today's posting, Ranger Bob, a naturalist by training as well as by inclination and avocation, takes a deep dive into his ultimate origins.  Ranger Bob's journey into his past goes far beyond any "genealogy" that this tired old family researcher has ever attempted!)

Star Dust

by Bob Randall

Every proton, neutron, and electron of every atom that is or ever has been part of my body all spewed out of the singularity about 14 billion years ago.  Naturally, that first proton-neutron pair was a hydrogen atom.  Who knows how long it took or how many places in the universe it traveled to before fusion in some star made that atom into other elements?  Who knows if it was in more than one stellar furnace?  Was it part of more than one asteroid or comet, changing "rides" with each collision?  That's just one atom.  Who knows how many other similar cosmic events took place to gather all the other atoms and molecules needed to make me?

Well, the answers to those specific questions are all the same: nobody knows.  Now, if you're a cosmologist, a theoretical physicist, or astrophysicist feel free to make a correction or two.  If you're a religious nut, a palm reader, an astrologist, an anti-vaxer, a flat earther, a science denier, or any other type of supernatural or pseudoscience believer, I wouldn’t be interested in your opinion.  Write your own essay.

All of that was just getting the ingredients here to Earth.  Think of all the times those atoms and molecules were involved in photosynthesis, worked their way through digestive systems, floated in the atmosphere, brought back down by a raindrop, settled to the bottom of an ocean to be locked in rock for millions of years, or flown to Mexico in the body of a monarch butterfly?  Maybe some of my atoms were even part of a fern that was eaten by a brontosaurus, then deposited somewhere to be eaten again by dung beetles.

And then somewhere along that trip, there was me.  Are any of those "beginning of me" atoms still in me or did I lose them all in dying cells, drops of blood, and respiration?  Have they all been replaced by atoms I picked up throughout my life and in the broccoli I ate last week, etc.?

The ride isn't over.  I'm just a marker in the route.  My atoms will be part of microbes, worms, bird poop, spinach, and a member of a yet-to-evolve species.  If a large enough meteorite hits Earth with enough force to throw some of my atoms off into space, it will be a wild ride to another part of the universe.  The atoms that are still here when the sun expands enough to engulf Earth will become part of our star.  When it explodes, who knows where they will go?  I’m just star dust.