Cheating Entropy

The infant universe was a rapidly expanding, seething hot maelstrom. As it expanded, this energy-filled cosmos began to cool, causing energy to “freeze” into matter, giving birth to the first atoms — hydrogen and helium. In the grand scale of cosmic time, gravity took the wheel, drawing these primordial atoms together, their density and pressure mounting. Then, in a flash of energy, nuclear fusion ignited, and the first stars burst into existence.

These first stars were vast, volatile, and fleeting. They rapidly exhausted their fuel, and in a cataclysmic finale, these behemoths collapsed under their own gravity and then exploded outwards in a supernova. In the fiery heart of these cosmic pyres, new elements were forged — carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, and others — the fundamental building blocks of life. The resulting shockwaves scattered these newly forged elements across the universe, seeding the cosmos with the ingredients necessary for the formation of new stars, planets, and eventually…