Time
Slide 11
And before that … well, all the elements that exist in the universe were created in stars formed after the Big Bang – but that’s a much more complicated story!
Notes
Of course, there are no photographs of the Big Bang, so this image of Nebula NGC 2818 in our own Milky Way will have to do. A nebula is an interstellar cloud of dust, gas and plasma. All the elements that exist – including lead, silver and gold – are thought to have been formed inside stars; only inside stars is there sufficient energy for elements to be forged. The elements that were created then were subsequently spewed out into the universe when these stars ‘died’.