This is one of my favorite charts, the relative abundance of all of the elements.

This is one of my favorite charts, the relative abundance of all of the elements. This particular one is for our solar system, but galaxy-wide it shouldn’t be all that different. Note the logarithmic scale on the Y-axis! After Helium, the values are mostly caused by nuclear reactions in stars. The spike at iron (Fe) is because it’s the tipping point between fusion and fission rates.

h/t Ethan Siegel

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abundance_of_the_chemical_elements