Life in this Universe, like what we have here on Earth, is perhaps the most beautiful and complex and outlandish that exists. For something like this to be created, for even the planets like Earth and Mars to be created, there is a fundamental pre-requisite.

The planets like Earth and Mars, the life on Earth, even the most primitive, is made up of complex elements. They comprise of elements more complex than Hydrogen and Helium.

The only way that can happen is when the stars that burn up the elemental Hydrogen, turning them into Helium and continue to turn them into more complex elements like Carbon and Sulphur and then explode in a supernova throwing all these complex elements far enough away from the original star so that they have a chance to coagulate into planets that comprise of these elements.

A supernova is an outlandish event. The run of the mill thing to do for a star is to slowly burn up all the Hydrogen and turn it into Helium and eventually expand into a red giant and then collapse on itself to form a brown dwarf.

No supernova. No planets. No life. Nothing exotic. Just a simple life lived. As expected.

The thing with stars is that they don't really have a choice. Depending on how massive they are when they are first created, their life is pretty much pre-determined. Only stars beyond a certain critical mass can explode in a supernova.

But not us.

We are nothing like the stars. No matter how massive (what circumstances) we are first created, we can always culminate in a supernova.

There is another difference between the stars and us.

Even the stars that are massive enough, have just one supernova in them.

But not us.

We have many many more.

It is up to us to bring them out.

It is up to us to decide whether we create planets and create complex elements and create life or just burn up the Hydrogen we have a lie down, easily forgotten.