The universe consisted of a compact ball of hydrogen (protons, neutrons, electrons and their anti-particles) plus radiation. There were no differentiated planets, suns, stars and galaxies. Five billion years ago, the compact hydrogen soup blasted apart with huge force, matter was hurled in all directions, and the universe doubled in size.
The blast caused a major decrease in the density and temperature of the universe after which new particles could be formed. Then the particles and anti-particles fought in a frenzy of self-destruction. The universe was left with a greatly reduced collection of positively-charged nuclei and negatively-charged electrons in a vast plasma mass.
Ninety nine percent of the matter of the universe still exists in this plasma state. We perform our own version of the big bang theory. We are all made of stardust—carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen. We smash up against each other for victory, slushing through a plasma sludge of our own making.
Stars are in constant battle with the pressure of gravity. When stars succumb, black holes form. Light is emitted when black holes collide. If something falls into a black hole, it gets stretched and shredded: spaghettification.
The sky looks like celestial soup without overbearing light pollution competing. The pale yellow dots splattered across a black bowl are overwhelming. Stars only twinkle. Do not flash or sparkle. It is bizarre for something to only be allowed a single verb. Though the dance implies movement, stars are not living beings. Do they listen to music? Is there a synchronization we are not aware of? They show up for the performance every night. Their enthusiasm never wanes, even as the sun, ruler of stars, threatens to overtake them.
Stars are so highly complex yet their beauty is so simple. They are there every night, regardless of whether or not I can see them. Their presence is secure in the world of chaos, though the realm in which they float is more chaotic than the busiest city.
I dreaded college in the city because I had always envisioned college filled with trees and grassy quads, with a multitude of students perfectly proportioned by ethnicity playing Frisbee on a forever autumn afternoon. No stargazing with friends splayed out on the lawn after a night of drinking games and dancing to Beyonce and Jay Z.
But I found beauty on the roof of the astrophysics lab building one night, peering through a telescope and counting the four moons next to Jupiter—Europa, Io, Callisto, Ganymede—and then looking over the ledge of the roof lab over the library to the blinding skyline with the bright speck of Jupiter and a waxing crescent moon suspended over a fluorescent Empire State building lit red and blue.
The first time I saw stars, I was eighteen years old. Having escaped an attempt to play the drinking game Kings with two decks of cards instead of one, I was lying supine in the pebbly sand of Woods Hole, Massachusetts, as a friend pointed out my first constellations: Orion, Taurus, Cassiopeia, Ursa Minor. I listened to the ancient stories, speechless. There were so many of them, dancing rhythmically to the sound of ocean waves.
Orion the hunter has three diamonds on his belt, aiming to kill Taurus, three dots in a triangle. The bull was a disguised Jupiter, who abducted the naïve and unsuspecting maiden Europa. Cassiopoeia twirls around in her throne as punishment for declaring herself the most beautiful. Arcas, who almost killed his mother and was transformed into a little bear, looks more like a small ladle.
Stars are highly complex yet their beauty is simple. They are there every night, regardless of whether or not I can see them. Their presence is secure in the world of chaos, though the realm in which they float is more chaotic than the busiest city.
I float on the frothy surface of chaos, a space cadet. There are moments the tide pulls me under and gasping for breath, my heart pounding and my head spinning from lack of oxygen, I am tempted to succumb. But the waves eventually spit me back up and I evade the threat of black holes.
I used to twinkle incessantly; now I just try to stave off gravitational pulls.
Science has taken advantage of my admiration for it, controlling my decisions and letting me sacrifice so much in its name. I refuse to be spaghettified by physics and chemistry. Numbers drive me now. I have chosen language that I can hear and almost taste, history with artifacts and proof, words I am able to visualize and create.
Stop.
Stop memorizing adrenocorticotropic hormone, compartmentalization, primary streak, mycorrhiza, apoptosis, nonsense codon, epididymis, Schwann cells, Casparian strip, loop of Henle, sarcoplasmic reticulum, corpus luteum, trophic cascade, imbibition.
Eclipsing binary, perihelion, inferior conjunction, geosynchronous orbit, protoplanetary disc, hypergalaxy, Roche limit, supernova, heliopause, Oosterhoff group, Cepheid variable, magnetosphere, entropy, toy theory, globular cluster, dwarf planet, chaos, spaghettification.
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