A World Without Stars
TLMUN Herald’s Writing Competition Essay (Winner)
“The cosmos is within us. We are made of star-stuff. We are a way for the universe to know itself.” – Carl Sagan, American astronomer, planetary scientist, cosmologist, and astrophysicist
Hushed, equanimous, and placid, was the surrounding darkness of the Scandinavian forests that engulfed us into its winding paths, lined with the tallest, most magnificent maple and pine trees, home to the hundreds of little common chiffchaffs that chirped away as they awoke to greet the break of dawn. The Kia we drove smoothly bowed around the arched corners, racing against the rising daystar. Guiding us was the light of a thousand diamonds in the sky, cheekily winking away at each other, whispering sweet nothings into the vast emptiness of space. A glowing white trail — a fraction of what was a colossal cosmogony web of intergalactic trajectories, pranced about the Nordic winter night sky, its light a reminder of the past it traveled through. At that moment, I asked myself, what would it be like in a world without stars?
Stars have always been prominently acknowledged amongst the many branches of astronomy, varying across multiple dynamic phenomena and celestial objects, as the grass-root of understanding galaxies and solar systems (Merriam, 2022). On the grounds of certain star properties like age, distribution, and unique composition in a galaxy, the history, underlying forces, and burgeoning of the said galaxy are effectively ferreted out. Likewise, these candescent speckles are at the helm of engineering and circulating progressively heavier elements, like carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen, formed during the exhaustion of hydrogen in a star’s core and a successive fusion of helium (NASA, 2008). The peculiarities of stars are somewhat parallel to that of the planetary systems and island universes that potentially amalgamate them.
In a movie theatre, I first wondered how our ancestors, sailors, and pirates navigated their way across enormous oceans. A quote from an animated film, Moana, “At night we name every star, we know where we are,” tacitly features the critical existence of constellations and stars in celestial navigation, some thousands of years ago. Celestial navigation was skilled artistry that few had a knack for, used to determine one’s spatial orientation by identifying the positions of stars, the moon, and the sun, and their angular distances with the nearest visible horizons. The emergence of such expertise being commonly practiced throughout civilizations, paved the way for exploration and early globalisation through trade (Merriam, 2022). The most prominently recognised constellation is the scintillating Orion nebula, whose presence is almost inescapable, owing to the stars that frame its anatomy, being visible in both the southern and northern hemispheres and its innately strategic location in the celestial equator (Anderberg, 2019). Hence, its quintessence is the most integral positioning mechanism for ancient dwellers. Thus far, what most may consider an archaic method of navigation, is still widely used by leading space agencies, namely The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). During the Apollo 11 mission 1969, astronauts used an optical sextant and telescope to sedulously acquire angular measurements between stars and Earth or moon horizons. Arm in arm, the Mars Exploration Rover, launched in 2003 to encompass the Martian surface, was reported to have a similar configuration for manoeuvring purposes.
But beyond the scientific world, and empirical evidence galore, stars serve a much more metaphysical and sentimental purpose that transcends the objective studies of material reality and coalesces with human emotions, and unfathomable imaginations that exceed conventional susceptibilities.
“From forth the fatal loins of these two foes, A pair of star-cross’d lovers take their life, Whose misadventured piteous overthrows Doth, with their death, bury their parents’ strife.” – Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare: Act I Prologue
Originating from the 400-year-old tragic romance, William Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet,” introduced readers to the popular phrase, “star-crossed lovers,” one which would later be the essence of heart-rending love stories, notably that of Jack Dawson and Rose Bukater, Cupid and Psyche, Heathcliff and Catherine, and Paris and Helen (Hart, 2023). The abstraction itself revolves in the metaphorical nucleus that bears the portrayal of stars and other celestial bodies as a central role in impacting the destiny of romantic kinships. In the field of astrology, it is a customary belief that the orientations of stars at the time of a person’s birth has the power to affect their essential qualities, milestones, and relationships. Astrologers often interpolate synastries, or birth charts to determine the compatibility between two individuals to assess the potential success of their romantic partnership, and its longevity (Hart, 2023). In the instance of the all too romanticised star-crossed lovers, the astrological compatibility may be scrutinised to be less auspicious, hence effectuating a blighted relationship.
Isn’t it bitterly sweet how stars tell the fate of a union, whether forged from true love or not? An example of such profound depiction is unveiled in Emily Brontë’s classic novel “Wuthering Heights,” where the protagonists Heathcliff and Catherine hail from opposite paradigms of society, or at least what was perceived to be at that time and place in the sullen and sepulchral highlands of Yorkshire. A love that could have lived on if not for the titanium reins of societal expectations and familial hindrances. Sooner, Catherine’s choice to wed Edgar Linton, a member of higher social strata, woefully sacrificing a fulfilling life with her soulmate, Heathcliff, tears into a dreadful stream of calamities that imminently reorients the bearings of their lives (Jha, 2022). A dolorous and heartsick Heathcliff, utterly consumed by deep hatred and a rapacious yearning for an even score, further deepened the bleeding gash between him and Catherine, casting an obscured veil of a cimmerian shade on an evocatively evergreen tale of love, loss, and liberty.
“Silently, one by one, in the infinite meadows of heaven, Blossomed the lovely stars, the forget-me-nots of the angels.” ― Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Evangeline: A Tale of Acadie
Imagine if the hydrogen contained within these twinklers did not enervate, and supernovae did not scatter the elements formed after, would anything around us exist, would we exist? Alas, the true storytellers are stars, for they can tell tales as old as time.
Stars are born within clouds of dust and scattered throughout most galaxies (Bolles, 2023). Forbidding, void and hollow would be a starless sky. When we are stuck in an endless trench that seems to swallow the reality around us, the stars that glimmer, instil hope in us, peering at us, as if to envelop our delicately fragile hearts and accompany us through thick or thin.
Written by: Shree Pavana Kurunsikumaran.
