“Almost every particle in the universe was once part of a star,” she says softly. “Every atom in your body. The metal in your chair, the oxygen in your lungs, the carbon in your bones. All those atoms were forged in a cosmic furnace over a million kilometers wide, billions of light-years from here. The confluence of events that led to this moment is so remote as to be almost impossible.” She puts her hand on my shoulder. Her touch is
