Born of Stars
One of my daughter’s best friends captured this event. Thank you, Ganesh!
2017 saw the first total solar eclipse cross the U.S. in 38 years. Millions traveled to witness the totality on August 21st. Many were caught off guard, unprepared for its emotional impact. The Sun, Moon, Earth and Sky, so ordinary and familiar, delivered a profound message that unexpectedly pierced hearts.
Oregon
Our daughter’s experience was partially captured in this headline photo. The rest lives within her. She and her husband flew from San Francisco to Portland to meet friends, then drove to a farm in Salem, Oregon for the show. Like many others, indescribable feelings emerged as the mid-day twilight approached and night fell. An orchestration on a cosmic scale, across 93 million miles.
“Dad, I was teary-eyed. I didn’t expect that. The stars came out, the animals got quiet, and crickets and bullfrogs woke up and began to sing.”
The Habitable Zone
I like to imagine the deep relationship we have with this life-giving orb and the Source that gave rise to it. Physically speaking, we, and it, were born 4.6 billion years ago from the gravitational collapse of interstellar dust. We are made from exactly the same raw material. And like us, our sun has a life expectancy — ten billion years, give or take. So it’s middle aged.
After this star formed, Earth occupied its “habitable zone,” the perfect match of distance and radiant energy and heat to maintain liquid water. Beliefs aside, a life-giving dance with Earth’s elements eventually ensued, giving rise to life.
Earth will enjoy this dance for a while, but not forever. The sun continuously morphs as fusion consumes its hydrogen fuel and its helium core collapses. This releases tremendous amounts of energy and expands the sun’s outer layers, pushing the habitable zone further and further out into the solar system. Currently, that zone is moving away from the sun, and Earth’s orbit, at a rate of one meter per year. This will accelerate greatly in 3 billion years or so as the sun transitions into a red giant, growing to nearly 10 million times its current volume. Its diameter will expand from just under 1 million, to nearly 200 million miles as its output massively increases.
Earth will either be inside this red giant, or orbiting barely above it if it hasn’t vaporized. At best, it will be a molten, lifeless version of its current self. Conditions compatible with life will exist much further out in our solar system, say a billion miles or so, in the new habitable zone. That gets us to Titan, one of Saturn’s very promising moons.
With an atmosphere and water under its surface, Titan may be perfect for life. By then, it may have warmed up from its current minus 290 degrees Fahrenheit to more typical Earth temperatures, transforming this frozen wasteland into a potent incubator. But that state too, will be on the clock. Eventually it, and we, will once again be the stuff of stars, swallowed into the nebula emitted by the white dwarf that was once our life-giving sun.
Back Home
My good friend, Russ, takes his turn with the welder’s mask to clearly see the eclipse
If you’re still with me, I’d like to return us both, thankfully, to Earth and the eclipse that inspired this piece. My wife and I spent that afternoon with friends in a Pennsylvania park. We tossed together a picnic and settled on a cushion of thick grass covered by comfy, cotton blankets. It never got really dark, but the change in the atmosphere was eerie and palpable. By two o’clock, it felt as if we were looking through honey. The sun had been slowly dimming, like a host at a dinner party who lowers the lights to give the candles a chance. A warm, yellow hue bathed the landscape like candlelight bathes a room.
Inner Space
It’s easy to forget how truly amazing life is. And by “life,” I mean the totality of all that is; our place in it; how we came to be part of it; and how we move through it. From our birth to our passing, it’s easy to take the most miraculous aspects of our life for granted as they become familiar. And this is true not only for our natural environment, but for the people in our lives as well.
This incredible eclipse served as a reminder that our sun and moon don’t simply hang in the sky. They are in a dance, perfectly choreographed to support Earth and its teeming life. And so it is with our lives. Or at least as I believe it to be. My steps, our steps, are perfectly choreographed, even when it doesn’t feel like it. Even when we’re stomping on toes in the midst of our so-called chaos.
The Hubble telescope images, gathered over the past two-and-a-half decades, paint this truth on the canvas of the night sky. This inky black void, with pinpricks of light so familiar and apparently static, is neither void nor static. These images indisputably show how little we perceive of what surrounds us; what we are truly a part of; what, if only we could grasp it, would put all of our fears to rest in the peace of this perfection.
Deep Space
I understand that words can not truly convey this. It’s experiential. So I yielded to my obsession with the cosmos and made a video. My wish is that you, too, may draw some inspiration from this immersion and brief journey into deep space. And I hope you enjoy it with the deepest gratitude for the thousands of people who work to bring Hubble’s images to the world.
The awe-inspiring Hubble telescope images are courtesy of spacetelescope.org.
Fullscreen viewing with headphones is recommended.
Originally published at beyourselfblog.com on September 17, 2017.
