Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. Massive stars cook elements in their cores through nuclear fusion . Starting with the light elements of hydrogen and helium, their central temperatures and pressures produce progressively heavier elements, carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, etc. up through iron. At the end of their lives they explode in a spectacular supernova , scattering these elements into space, contributing material to the formation of other stars and star systems. The region shown above is about 50 lightyears across.
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