“The cosmic origin of the elements”

In this lecture, Martin Asplund, director of the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics (MPA) in Munich, explores how the essential chemical elements of matter — such as carbon, oxygen, iron, and gold — were forged throughout cosmic history. He begins with the Big Bang, where the lightest elements were formed, and continues with stellar nucleosynthesis inside stars and in supernova explosions. These processes enabled the formation of planets and created the building blocks for life. Asplund also explains how astronomers extract “chemical fingerprints” from ancient stars to reconstruct the evolution of the Milky Way and the universe.

This lecture, delivered in October 2011, is part of the astrophysics series ‘The Science of the Cosmos, the Science in the Cosmos’, tackles the fundamental questions in contemporary astrophysics.Why, at some point some 13 billion years ago, did a tiny, hot

In this lecture, Martin Asplund, director of the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics (MPA) in Munich, explores how the essential chemical elements of matter — such as carbon, oxygen, iron, and gold — were forged throughout cosmic history. He begins with the Big Bang, where the lightest elements were formed, and continues with stellar nucleosynthesis inside stars and in supernova explosions. These processes enabled the formation of planets and created the building blocks for life. Asplund also explains how astronomers extract “chemical fingerprints” from ancient stars to reconstruct the evolution of the Milky Way and the universe.

This lecture, delivered in October 2011, is part of the astrophysics series ‘The Science of the Cosmos, the Science in the Cosmos’, tackles the fundamental questions in contemporary astrophysics.Why, at some point some 13 billion years ago, did a tiny, hot universe begin expanding in a Big Bang? The birth of the universe, as well as the formation of stars and planets, are explored in the first edition.