Aurora - Part 1

Begin -

With spacetime.

Add one proton + one electron -

call it hydrogen.

(many x any x many) ^n

So now, hydrogen clouds, in spacetime, drifting.

Should a cloud be denser, there spacetime begins to bend and distort,

creating a low spot, a valley, a well.

+ potential energy +

The clouds drift down into these low spots, valleys, wells.

More + more.

(Matter tells spacetime how to bend -

spacetime tells matter how to move.)

The valleys walls become, steeper,

the gravity wells, deeper.

The clouds fall, faster.

Forming -

First, a disc.

Then, in the center,

a sphere.

Which is -

the largest possible volume

within

the smallest possible surface.

The atoms cannot all be the center,

but they all want to be the center,

(you know people like that),

so they pack tighter,

and tighter,

and tighter,

until finally -

Ignition.

* * *

The First Stars

Live Hard!

Burn Fast!

Die Young!

Ride interstellar Harley Panhead Suicide Shifters with Ape Hangers!

Have Flaming Hearts tattooed on their brawny arms!

Fill their bellies with helium fused from the primal hydrogen which gave them life!

Then fuse the helium into ever heavier elements - up to iron!

(In layers like an onion!)

Growing ever more bloated!

Until they Explode!

Spewing their guts across the Universe!

In their catastrophic final moments forging the elements heavier than iron!

(But the math for that escapes me.)

Requiescat in Pace.

(We are but one of the end products of cosmic indigestion on a colossal scale.)

Nonetheless, De mortuis nil nisi bonum.

Time,

oh so elusive,

passes...

And new discs form.

New Galaxies,

give birth to new stars,

smaller stars,

more stable stars,

longer lived stars.

Stars surrounded by -

Planets.

Small rocky planets,

gas giant planets,

many many planets,

condensed and aggregated from the remains of those first stars.

The life givers.

And on this planet,

our planet,

life arose.

* * *

Question: "What is it like in the heart of a star?"

Short answer: "Very very hot!"

Longer answer?

Imagine...

Imagine you are a subatomic particle,

a proton, neutron, electron, photon,

whatever,

In Times Square, New York City,

On New Years Eve.

The crowd density?

(everyone else is a subatomic particle, proton, neutron, photon, whatever, too.)

Think Times Square ^3 (cubed)

Because it's not just any New Years Eve,

It's 11:59:59 PM, 1999!

Waiting for the ball to drop.

Such a crush that you can't move the width of an atomic nucleus,

in any direction,

without bumping into,

or bouncing off of,

someone,

or something.

(Yes, neutrinos cross faster. But they cheat.)

Now -

Cross Times Square.

"Excuse me, pardon me... Oops, sorry. Excuse me. No, I don't want to dance... Oh, all right."

To reach the other side you must work your way through the photon crowd.

Free electrons, atomic nuclei, billiard bouncing neutrons, miscellaneous particles.

The odd quark.

(All quarks are odd)

The deafening roar.

"Want some?"

"Some what? What? What is that? Jack Daniels? No, thank you, oh... well... I am kind of dry., you know... maybe just a little. Thanks."

It's a long, slow, but not uninteresting journey -

there is, after all, a tremendous amount of sex going on all around you.

(Where do you think all the heavier elements come from? Hmmm?)

Ten thousand years -

One hundred thousand years -

to work your way through this New York, New Years, roiling, seething, crowd.

So many years to the other side,

to the surface.

Ten thousand years,

One hundred thousand years,

to the face of the star,

and freedom.