Discipline
Chemistry
Lessons across the journey that lean on chemistry, in the order they appear in the story.
- 3.1 Where the elements come fromDraft
Stellar nucleosynthesis: how stars build carbon, oxygen and iron.
- 3.2 Making goldPlanned
Supernovae and neutron-star mergers, the violent events that make the heaviest elements.
- 3.3 The periodic table as a history bookPlanned
Every element has an origin story; the periodic table arranged by where each one was made.
- 3.4 Why carbon?Planned
Bonding, chains and rings: why carbon chemistry is the chemistry of complexity.
- 3.5 Molecules in spacePlanned
Dust, ice and organic molecules between the stars.
- 3.7 Are you really made of stardust?Planned
The famous claim, tested element by element.
- 4.1 From nebula to planetsDraft
How the solar system assembled from a disc of gas and dust.
- 4.2 Earth's violent birthPlanned
The Moon-forming impact and the magma ocean.
- 4.3 Core, mantle, crustDraft
Differentiation: how the Earth sorted itself into layers.
- 4.5 Oceans and airPlanned
Where the water and the atmosphere came from.
- 4.6 Deep timePlanned
Radiometric dating: how we know the age of a rock.
- 5.1 What is life?Planned
Definitions of life, and the last universal common ancestor of everything alive today.
- 5.2 How chemistry became biologyDraft
The hypotheses and evidence for the origin of life.
- 5.3 Evolution by natural selectionPlanned
The mechanism, stated precisely, and the evidence that it works.
- 5.4 The Great Oxidation EventPlanned
How microbes remade the planet's atmosphere.
- 5.5 The complex cellPlanned
Endosymbiosis and the origin of the eukaryotic cell.
- 5.6 The Cambrian explosionPlanned
Animal body plans appear in the fossil record.
- 5.7 Mass extinctionsPlanned
Five great dyings and the age of reptiles.
- 5.8 Mammals in the shadowsDraft
How small mammals survived the dinosaurs and inherited the Earth.