Where do atoms come from? Billions of years of cosmic fireworks. | Michelle Thaller

The periodic table was a lot simpler at the beginning of the universe. Dr. Michelle Thaller is an astronomer who studies binary stars and the life cycles of stars. She is Assistant Director of Science Communication at NASA. She went to college at Harvard University, completed a post-doctoral research fellowship at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in Pasadena, Calif. then started working for the Jet Propulsion Laboratory's (JPL) Spitzer Space Telescope. After a hugely successful mission, she moved on to NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC), in the Washington D.C. area. In her off-hours often puts on about 30lbs of Elizabethan garb and performs intricate Renaissance dances. For more information, visit NASA. If you're interested in licensing this or any other Big Think clip for commercial or private use, contact our licensing partner Executive Interviews: http://bit.ly/2QU1U5i Read more at BigThink.com: http://bit.ly/2Kmxjx4 Follow Big Think here: YouTube: http://goo.gl/CPTsV5 Facebook: http://bit.ly/1qJMX5g Twitter: https://twitter.com/bigthink