Does seem pretty whacky. But I'm quite ignorant in this area - it is interesting that all the heavy elements in the earth we are told come from a super novae. What is the traditional theory for how the planets of our solar system, orbiting around a hypothesized second generation star came to be endowed with those elements? The idea that we are literally formed directly from the remnants of a supernovae is alluring even if I have no formal training in the field.
"it is interesting that all the heavy elements in the earth we are told come from a super novae"
The origin of heavy elements is actually more complex than that.
All of the hydrogen and most of the helium in the universe emerged 13.8 billion years ago from the Big Bang. The remainder of the chemical elements, except for a tiny amount of lithium, were forged in stellar interiors, supernova explosions, and neutron-star mergers. Elements up to and including iron are made in the hot cores of short-lived massive stars. There, nuclear fusion creates ever-heavier elements as it powers the star and causes it to shine. Elements heavier than iron—the majority of the periodic table—are primarily made in environments with free-neutron densities in excess of a million particles per cubic centimeter. The free neutrons, if captured onto a seed nucleus, result in a heavier, radioactive nucleus that subsequently decays into a stable heavy species. The so-called slow neutron-capture process, or s-process, mostly occurs during the late stages in the evolution of stars of 1–10 solar masses (M⊙). But the s-process accounts for the formation of only about half of the isotopes beyond iron. Creating the other half requires a rapid capture sequence, the r-process, and a density of greater than 1020 neutrons/cm3 that can bombard seed nuclei. The requisite neutron fluxes can be provided by supernova explosions (see the article by John Cowan and Friedrich-Karl Thielemann, Physics Today, October 2004, page 47) or by the mergers of binary neutron-star systems.
