Stars
Let me tell you about the stars.
But first, let me tell you about ... mayflies.
Mayflies are of the order Ephemeroptera, from the greek ephēmeros, meaning lasting only a day. Ephemeral. These insects spend some time (around a year) as larvae, and then live as adults for one day. A lifetime of adventure, sadness, love, anger, and everything else, squeezed into one day. Well, as much of those things as a fly can have. For them it's pretty much just about mating.
Consider tho, that our own lifetimes are something like 30 thousand times longer than that fly. Plenty of time to do all those things. We are so far beyond the fly in terms of the time we have that the fly has no possible way to even comprehend the other being as being similar to itself.
Back to the stars.
The lifetime of a typical star, like our sun, is estimated at around 5 billion years. That's around 60 MILLION times longer than our own lives. We are but a mayfly's mayfly to a star. We have all of our life experiences to pack into a measly 80 or so years. If the stars were conscious, something as ephemeral as a human life would be to them, practically without any meaning at all. And we have no way to comprehend their immense lifetimes.
But just what's in a lifetime, to a star?
Stars come in many varieties, but I'll just look at three.
Some are destined to life forever. Or as close to forever as we can figure. They were born billions of years ago, and live uninteresting lives. Such is the the price of immortality, for a star.
Some are life-givers. They live a long time, long enough for live to grow, and die, in their nurturing care. But they will die themselves. And in death, they can be beautiful:
And some stars are destined for transcendent glory. These stars burn bright. And hot. And fast. But that is not their glory.
In their death, these stars announce themselves to the entire universe. With an unimaginably violent end, they will outshine, for a brief moment, a billion others. But that is not their glory.
The immense forces in the deaths of these stars are the only producer of the heavy elements that form the planets that can harbor life. Indeed, all elements heavier than helium come from the deaths of stars, distributed by immense cosmic forces, until they can come together again, to form ... us.
We are, in a very literal sense, star-stuff.
That is their glory.
But first, let me tell you about ... mayflies.
Mayflies are of the order Ephemeroptera, from the greek ephēmeros, meaning lasting only a day. Ephemeral. These insects spend some time (around a year) as larvae, and then live as adults for one day. A lifetime of adventure, sadness, love, anger, and everything else, squeezed into one day. Well, as much of those things as a fly can have. For them it's pretty much just about mating.
Consider tho, that our own lifetimes are something like 30 thousand times longer than that fly. Plenty of time to do all those things. We are so far beyond the fly in terms of the time we have that the fly has no possible way to even comprehend the other being as being similar to itself.
Back to the stars.
The lifetime of a typical star, like our sun, is estimated at around 5 billion years. That's around 60 MILLION times longer than our own lives. We are but a mayfly's mayfly to a star. We have all of our life experiences to pack into a measly 80 or so years. If the stars were conscious, something as ephemeral as a human life would be to them, practically without any meaning at all. And we have no way to comprehend their immense lifetimes.
But just what's in a lifetime, to a star?
Stars come in many varieties, but I'll just look at three.
Some are destined to life forever. Or as close to forever as we can figure. They were born billions of years ago, and live uninteresting lives. Such is the the price of immortality, for a star.
Some are life-givers. They live a long time, long enough for live to grow, and die, in their nurturing care. But they will die themselves. And in death, they can be beautiful:
And some stars are destined for transcendent glory. These stars burn bright. And hot. And fast. But that is not their glory.
In their death, these stars announce themselves to the entire universe. With an unimaginably violent end, they will outshine, for a brief moment, a billion others. But that is not their glory.
The immense forces in the deaths of these stars are the only producer of the heavy elements that form the planets that can harbor life. Indeed, all elements heavier than helium come from the deaths of stars, distributed by immense cosmic forces, until they can come together again, to form ... us.
We are, in a very literal sense, star-stuff.
That is their glory.