PLEASE without being graphic, but where does everything go? Ashes are just the carbon that you contained? I don’t know what else makes us up, but must be released into the atmosphere or something no?
I’m a big fan of Neil Degrass Tyson’s videos, and learning about the universe is basically my substitute for religion. My sister died yesterday after a battle with cancer. And being the sciencey astro nerd of an uncle, I need a little better understanding of what makes us up, to explain what remains to get used again. To her 16 yo daughter who isn’t particularly religious either, but is obviously in a pretty sensitive state, as am I. Looking for comfort.
In: 6
Your body is mostly water, which will evaporate during cremation, releasing into the atmosphere as water vapor/steam. The carbon in your body would mostly be converted to CO2 during cremation, which also ends up in the atmosphere.
The ashes left behind are mostly minerals like calcium phosphates and sodium or potassium salts. A little bit of carbon is left behind in the ashes as carbonate.
Most of our bodyweight is water. Water under fire becomes vapor. So you can say that people becomes a part of clouds when cremated, if you want to be poetic.
The carbon based stuff is burned into carbonic gas. (CO2) . CO2 becomes parts of the plants by photosynthesis and turn back into the air we breathe.
The last remainer is the ashes. Ashes are mineral salts, typically. If you throw them into the nature it will also eventually become parts of the plants, and then us again.
It is an eternal cycle.
I’ll take a crack at it.
65% of our mass is oxygen. 150 lb person is about 98 lbs oxygen. That can easily got back into the atmosphere.
Another 28 lbs is carbon and not all will end up up in the ash. A lot of it will end up as carbon dioxide.
Another 15 lbs is hydrogen. Most of that will end up as water vapor.
5 lbs is nitrogen. Most of of our atmosphere is nitrogen gas.
A little over 2 lbs is Calcium. I believe that is the bulk of the ashes.
What happens to the gasses that return to the atmosphere? Look at the trees. The bulk of the mass of every tree comes from carbon dioxide taken right out of the atmosphere. The carbon dioxide goes into trees. The oxygen keeps all the animals alive.
There are a few organizations that will take some of the carbon left and use it to seed an artificial diamond. Although this might be a pet service only.
Latest Answers