As Fred Hoyle was the first to realize, this coincidence enabled stars in the late stages of their lives to turn helium into carbon, oxygen and most of the other atoms that you and I are made of. Moreover, it became clear that stars end their lives by blowing apart, recycling many of the atoms that they’ve made into gas clouds that can later form new stars, planets and ultimately you and me. In other words, we’re more connected to the heavens than our ancestors realized: we’re made of star stuff.
