by Cynthia McKanzie

April 5, 2019

from MessageToEagle Website

Italian version

Credit: Public Domain

We may not think about it often,

but we share a very special relationship

with space...
 

Many years ago, famous astronomer and cosmologist Carl Sagan (1934-1996) said we are made of star-stuff...

Today, we know it's true. Astronomers have discovered that humans are made of particles that traveled from distant galaxies.

This implies we are extragalactic visitors in what we think is our galaxy, the Milky Way.

"The nitrogen in our DNA, the calcium in our teeth, the iron in our blood, the carbon in our apple pies were made in the interiors of collapsing stars.

 

We are made of star-stuff," Carl Sagan said.

Astronomers have long been aware of that elements forged in stars mover from one galaxy to another but finding our place in the universe has not been easy.

While running advanced computer simulations astrophysicists from the Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois discovered that more than half of the matter in the Milky Way was transported through intergalactic winds.

As a result, each one of us may be made in part from extragalactic matter.

"Given how much of the matter out of which we formed may have come from other galaxies, we could consider ourselves space travelers or extragalactic immigrants.

It is likely that much of the Milky Way's matter was in other galaxies before it was kicked out by a powerful wind, traveled across intergalactic space and eventually found its new home in the Milky Way," said Daniel Anglés-Alcázar from the Northwestern University astrophysics department.

According to Daniel Anglés-Alcázar, up to one-half of the atoms around us including in the solar system, on Earth and in each one of us comes not from our own galaxy but from other galaxies, up to one million light years away.

While trying to determine humans' role on planet Earth most turn to history books and archaeological discoveries, but there are also those who look at the stars and seek answers about humanity in Cosmos...
 

For example, Dr. Ellis Silver, leading environmentalist and ecologist put forward a controversial theory suggesting humans evolved somewhere else in the galaxy and we are aliens on our own planet.

As mentioned in our previous article, Silver arguments are based mostly on our physiology that he considered surprisingly unsuited and ill-equipped for Earth's environment.

Silver thinks mankind may have evolved on a different planet, and we may have been brought here as a highly developed species.

Needless to say that Silver's controversial theory has raided debates.

Now that we know we are made of star-stuff and particles in our body are from distant galaxies, we can look up at the stars and reflect more on our role in the Universe, but we still haven't solved the mystery of our coded DNA and we don't know the "identity" of the 'programmer'...