The carbon in your body probably made an intergalactic detour before reaching Earth

All the carbon in the universe forms in the burning cores of stars, but the element that makes up 18% of our bodies may have made a detour through the outer edges of our galaxy – and perhaps even into intergalactic space – on real “cosmic conveyor belts”. ” before reaching Earth, according to new research.

Astronomers in the US and Canada have revealed that the circumgalactic medium – a vast and complex halo of gas surrounding galaxies – stores carbon (among other materials) away from the galaxy before recycling it into star-forming regions where it originated, they contribute to the formation of planets, moons, new stars and other celestial bodies. The discovery, detailed in a December 27 to study published in The Astrophysical Journal Letterscould have important implications for our understanding of galactic evolution.

Scientists confirmed the existence of the circumgalactic medium in 2011, describing it as a vast cloud circulating around star-forming galaxies like the Milky Way that helps recycle hot, oxygen-rich gases. Now, the researchers of the new study show that the lower temperature material, including carbon, can also make a pass on this “cosmic conveyor belt”, as described in a press release.

“We can now confirm that the circumgalactic medium acts as a giant reservoir for carbon and oxygen,” said Samantha Garza, an astronomer at the University of Washington who participated in the study, said in the university . declaration. “And, at least in star-forming galaxies, we suggest that this material then returns to the galaxy to continue the recycling process.”

This recycling of stellar material is crucial for the formation of new celestial bodies, while the recycling of carbon – often called the building block of life – is essential for the formation of ours bodies and all living things.

“Think of the circumgalactic medium as a giant train station: it’s constantly pushing material out and pulling it back in,” Garza explained. “The heavy elements that stars make are pushed out of their host galaxy and into the circumgalactic medium through their explosive supernovae deaths, where they can eventually withdraw and continue the cycle of star and planet formation.”

Garza and his colleagues used the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph on the Hubble Space Telescope to detect how the circumgalactic medium of 11 star-forming galaxies impacts nine distant ones. quasars (extremely bright galactic nuclei). Their analysis revealed that some of the quasars’ light is absorbed by an abundance of carbon in the circumgalactic medium—carbon that in some cases has been channeled nearly 400,000 light-years beyond its original galaxy. It is four times the diameter of the Milky Way.

“The implications for galaxy evolution, and for the nature of the carbon reservoir available to galaxies for the formation of new stars, are exciting,” said Jessica Werk, co-author of the study also from the University of Washington. “The same carbon in our bodies probably spent a significant amount of time outside the galaxy!”

Further research could provide more insight into how materials channeled from the circumgalactic medium impact the number of stars formed in a galaxy. One theory, for example, hypothesizes that the eventual decrease or end of the involvement of the circumgalactic medium in the cosmic recycling process could contribute to the star population of a galaxy in decline.

“If you can keep the cycle going forward — pushing material out and pulling it back — then theoretically you have enough fuel to keep star formation,” Garza said.

So, even if you wish you had more time to travel, make sure that at least your carbon atoms had enough of the intergalactic journey before ending up in your body.