Hey, Professor Charbonneau, how did your life begin?

Assistant Professor of Astronomy David Charbonneau, slim-hipped Science A-47, “Cosmic Connections” heartthrob and member of the Harvard Origins of Life Initiative, answered FM’s rather-forward question.



Let’s see. I would say that seven billion years ago a previous star that was the ancestor of the sun went through a supernova dispersing its

newly-formed elements into the galaxy, and then the protostellar cloud that would later become the sun collapsed out of this material, and planets formed around that newly formed star, and those elements are the stuff of which we’re made today. That’s how my life began.

—Melissa Tran