How old are the carbon atoms in our bodies?

The “age” of the atoms isn’t very useful because carbon is “recycled” continuously. If an atom “lives” in a C02 molecule and is absorbed by a plant, it begins a new “life” there incorporated into the woody fiber of the plant. With few exceptions, all of our planet’s atoms are fairly stable and persistent; they change form but hang around year after year, with the exception of radioactive materials that are decaying into simpler elements, and the bits of light atmosphere drawn away by the solar wind. Carbon is a good baseline though since it’s simple, stable and visible.

In theory, all the material in the universe has always existed and will always exist even pre/post Big Bang/Big Crunch. Are you asking how long they have existed as Carbon?

@GeorgeGee – No, I’m talking about nucleosynthesis, not molecules carbon might be part of.

@Ame_Evil – Yes. Primordial nucleosynthesis did not produce any carbon as far as I know.

The presence of heavy metallic elements in the Earth would affirm at least one supernova event, but the carbon could predate it by billions of years. It could come from anywhere. I’m a little shaky on this, but can’t the triple-alpha process occur in any star massive enough to produce the reaction as it begins to collapse?

@IchtheosaurusRex – Well, eventually the triple-alpha process will occur inside our sun too. But almost all the resulting carbon will remain trapped in the white dwarf.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_dwarf#Stars_with_very_low_mass

I was wondering about the gap between two supernovae. Do we know how long it takes before new system begin to form?

I cant contribute anything intelligent, but I fucking love this question.

@uberbatman I agree… I’m lurking too

@nebule & @uberbatman Can I join the club

I’m one atom lower than @uberbatman – but I love this question and @mattbrowne , too.

@mattbrowne , I don’t know offhand. I would suspect that astronomers are observing these events, but I don’t have any links that would help. My free login at Science pulls a lot of hits on supernovae. This one caught my attention:

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/sci;283/5406/1290?maxtoshow=&hits=10&RESULTFORMAT=&fulltext=supernovae&searchid=1&FIRSTINDEX=0&resourcetype=HWCIT

Don’t know if it will help, but it seems apropos your question.

@IchtheosaurusRex – Thanks for the link. I will check this out!