Author(s): Jacob Berkowitz

Science

This is the remarkable story of how a fledgling field of science holds the promise of radically expanding our view of life and the universe as we know it. In 1957, as the world obsessed over the launch of the Soviet Sputnik satellite, another, less noticed space age was taking off. That year, astrophysicist Fred Hoyle and colleagues solved a centuries-old quest for the origin of the elements. The answer they found wasn't on Earth, but in the stars - their research showed that we are literally stardust. In this captivating story of an exciting new science, author Jacob Berkowitz weaves together the latest research in the field to reveal a dramatic new view of the night sky - not as an alien frontier, but as our cosmic birthplace.