Nuclear Element Oven

Somewhere in the universe, deep inside the core of a colossal star, extreme pressures and temperatures have been cooking light elements into heavy elements. Hydrogen collided with Hydrogen to create Helium, and Helium collided with Hydrogen to become Lithium, and that process continued over millions and millions of years until incredibly heavy elements like Iron destabilized the fusion process and caused the star to collapse and then explode, launching its chemical innards radially outward. Right now a star is scattering Carbon, Nitrogen, Oxygen -all of the chemicals required for life- and more out into the far reaches of that star’s galaxy.

Somewhere else, the chemically enriched vomit from another star has already formed a gas cloud in the vacuum of space that is condensing, collapsing in on its own gravity, and forming a new solar system with all of the ingredients needed for the development of self-replicating proteins, proteins that could very well replicate and replicate and become more and more sophisticated until life emerges from the products of chemical and nuclear reactions occurring over billions of years. Life that may not even be carbon based, but silicon based. Life that needs no water for survival. After all, there is only one ideal condition for our specific brand of life, but there is not only one ideal condition for any kind of life.