Description

Before dying, stars fuse elements like H, He, C, N, O, and Si, up to an iron core. In supernovae, these elements—some as rare as gold—are scattered across the cosmos. I imagine them as jeweled layers inside the star, destined to enrich galaxies and worlds. 

Before stars die, they fuse a number of elements inside their stellar structure. These elements then explode across the universe in supernova, chemically enriching galaxies and more. These elements include the rarest elements in the cosmos, like gold. I envision these elements in their layers inside the star as the jewels they may eventually become. These elements include H, He, C, N, O, Si, all the way up to the star's iron ash core, which comes just before death.

I generated this image in Blender3D using a combination of hard-surface modeling techniques. I used the Cycles rendering engine and flat harsh lighting to capture the intrinsic twinkle and reflections of the jewels.