An easy book to read about a complex subject. Very well-divided into chapters that focus on particular questions or issues around origins: the universe, galaxies, stars, planets, life. There are also a couple of chapters on the possibility and the search for life elsewhere in the universe. He also includes an interesting chapter on matter and antimatter, and dark matter and energy. You get a sense of the big pictures and also the ongoing unresolved questions or issues in this domaine.
Lots of interesting facts to pick up:
Living things are made largely of the most common elements in the universe, which differ completely from the most common elements on earth. This is considered one possible argument for life beginning outside earth and being "seeded" here, but is by no means a final argument.
A great explanation of how stars create those most common elements in the universe through fusion of progressively more complex molecules, up to iron. Once you hit iron, more energy is consumed in the fusion than is produced, leading to a collapse of the star, a huge rise in temperatures and a final explosive fusion as the star blows itself up. In this last fusion all the other elements are created, but in much smaller amounts than iron and the preceding other elements.
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