When you think about the best pictures in astronomy, almost every one is a nebula; the pillars of creation in the Eagle Nebula, or the complex Helix Nebula – or my personal favorite, the Ring Nebula. They’re beautiful, wispy clouds of gas and dust that signify both the birth and death of stars....

After the big bang, all we had was hydrogen, a little bit of helium, and a few other trace elements. Today, we’ve a whole periodic table of elements to enjoy, from oxygen we breathe to the aluminium cans we drink from to the uranium that powers some people’s homes. How did we get from plain old...