In the Beginning …

We long to be connected to the Cosmos—witness the pseudoscience of astrologyAstrology, the belief that celestial events profoundly influence our lives here on EarthEarth, popular even today—and we have always looked to the heavens for inspiration and answers. We watched and wondered about our place in the Universe and composed stories—mythsMyth—to organize our experiences, many of which expound some aspect of cosmic order. These stories, attempts to feel more at home in an uncertain and often dangerous Universe, typically involved anthropomorphic sky godsGod, such as the Sumerian godGod Anu or the biblical GodGod of Abraham. Native Americans and Indigenous Peoples throughout the world all looked to the sky for answers. We were people equally of EarthEarth and Sky. As we became better at figuring things out, our answers to these questions evolved through increasing stages of sophistication, progressing from primitive mythic narrative through the philosophical speculation of the ancient Greeks to recognizably mature scientific responses. The scientific evidence leading to our current understanding of the beginning—of the origin of the Universe itself—is reviewed with a final focus on primordial nucleosynthesisNucleosynthesis, primordial, the synthesis of chemical elementsChemical elements in the early Universe. Within the first few minutes after the Big BangBig Bang that brought the Universe into existence 13.8 billion years ago, only hydrogen and heliumHelium and a trace of lithiumLithium were formed. We have to look, as we will in the next chapter, to the stars to understand the origin of the remaining naturally occurring elements. Therein lies our true cosmic connectionCosmic connection.