The above image shows a small section of the Veil Nebula, as it was
observed by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. This section of the
outer shell of the famous supernova remnant is in a region known as NGC
6960 or, more colloquially, the Witch's Broom Nebula. All of
the atoms that make up us and our world, except for hydrogen, helium,
and some lithium atoms, were created inside stars which later exploded,
the aftermaths of which would have looked something like this.