One of those random facts that can either make you shrug or send your imagination spiraling out into space. For me, it’s usually the second option.

Because the more you think about it, the more it becomes obvious — everything circles back to the beginning. Not just the Earth, but the very material we hold in our hands, the things we create, even the art we make — it’s all part of some cosmic recycling program billions of years old.

I’m not a geologist, an astrophysicist, or some astro nerd in a lab coat — though, honestly, sometimes I wish I had that kind of math brain. This is not that story. This is pure art — as strange and twisted as it gets. But can it get any stranger than reality itself?

Just picture Ridley Scott’s dystopias, H.R. Giger’s alien nightmares, or Isaac Asimov’s epic futures. Where would the creative mind of the 21st century be without those who dared to imagine what we couldn’t yet see? That’s the lane I try to stay in — not explaining the universe, but sculpting the way it feels.

But let me bring it back down to Earth — literally. Let’s talk about metal.

All my sculptures are made of steel. Cold, heavy, stubborn steel — the material of machines, skyscrapers, and swords. But is all metal steel? Is all steel metal? Funny how we throw these words around like they’re interchangeable. They’re not. Steel is metal, sure. But it’s also a carefully engineered mix — about 95% iron and 5% carbon, sometimes with other bits added in.

And the real magic? It’s not just the ingredients, it’s the process — heating, cooling, refining, repeating. Forcing out the impurities until it becomes this durable, reliable material we’ve been shaping for centuries. But it still all starts with iron — Ferrum, if you’re into Latin or the periodic table.

And iron, where does that come from?

You might say, “Well, from the ground, obviously.” Sure. But then what? Where did Earth get it? That’s the question that sends me back out into the vast black canvas above us. Because the answer is humbling: Earth got its iron from a dying star.

Here’s the story…

— or at least, the version that stuck in my artist’s brain.

The universe is about 13.8 billion years old. Our sun is a third-generation star, meaning there were already stars living, fusing, dying, and exploding long before our solar system even formed. Somewhere, billions of years ago, a massive star — maybe more than one — reached the end of its life.

A star lives by fusing elements together — hydrogen to helium, then heavier and heavier elements as it burns through its fuel. But when it gets to iron, everything stops. Iron doesn’t give energy back. It just sits there. And when a star starts making iron, it’s basically writing its own death sentence.

That’s when things go supernova.

The star collapses in on itself, then explodes with such violent energy that it flings all those heavy elements — metals like iron, nickel, gold — out into the universe. Dust. Cosmic debris. The raw material for the next generation of stars, planets… and eventually, people.

That’s where Earth comes from. That’s where the metal in our veins and bones — yes, we have iron in us too — originally came from. And that’s where the steel I weld and grind in my workshop comes from.

I don’t know about you, but that stops me in my tracks every single time.

It means my sculptures aren’t just art. They’re fragments of a star that lived, died, and gave everything so that new worlds could form. The steel I shape has been on a longer journey — no, scratch that, on a longer timeline — than anything my hands could ever create on their own.

That’s what inspired my series Galactic Fossils.

I started imagining — what if there were civilizations out there, lost to time and space, whose stories we’ll never know because their sun died before we ever had the chance to look their way? Species who might have sculpted, written, painted… created. Just like us. But their worlds — their entire solar systems — are gone, swallowed by a dying star.

What if the only thing left was… metal?

Indestructible. Eternal. Floating somewhere in the cosmic dark.

That’s the kind of mythology I carry in my head when I sculpt. I’m not trying to recreate a specific alien species or predict what extraterrestrial life looks like. Honestly, I think it’s arrogant to assume our imagination could ever get it right. But what I can do is imagine their artifacts — fossils made not of bone, but of metal. The kind of fossils that could survive the death of a star.

That’s what my Galactic Fossils are — imagined relics of civilizations that the universe failed to preserve. Artifacts that exist only because someone — me, this human from Earth — dared to imagine them.

And that’s what art is, isn’t it? You can’t prompt this. You can’t download it. AI won’t spit it out for you because it’s not data — it’s imagination. It’s memory, feeling, and a little bit of obsession welded together.

My sculptures might look abstract. Some people see bones, others see machines. Some tell me they look like alien artifacts dug up from another world. And maybe they are — because that’s exactly where my mind goes when I’m grinding metal sparks into the air.

I imagine the universe — vast, indifferent, beautiful — filled with stories we’ll never hear. And somehow, I feel connected to those lost civilizations through the metal in my hands.

Steel. Star metal. Galactic residue.

It’s funny how art has a way of connecting us back to the beginning. Of reminding us that creation always comes from destruction. Without that long-dead star, there would be no Earth. No metal. No sculptures. No me.

So next time you see one of my sculptures, don’t just see the steel. See the star that died so it could exist. See the cosmic cycle of birth, death, and creation.

See the fossil.

About the Artist:
I’m Peter von Hauerland — an artist who welds imagination, science, and a bit of existential wonder into steel sculptures. My work explores humanity’s connection to the universe, the materials we use, and the stories we’ll never know but can still dream of. Explore more of my Galactic Fossils

www.galacticfossils.com

https://www.vonhauerland.com/gallery/peter-von-hauerland

Peter Hauerland

You can find my space- and paleontology- inspired sculptural art objects and sculptures throughout my website in the following sections. These are hyperlinks and you can click them to get forwarded to my website:

Galactic Fossils

Interactive Cosmos Sculptures

Art Decor Inspired by Space Objects made of sheet steel

Tiny Space Creatures