Image by scartmyart from Pixabay
Remains of many dead and dying stars
in a vast graveyard near the center
of our Milky Way galaxy in a
black hole where the dead feed on
others – like celestial zombies emitting X-ray howls.
Milky Way center —by NASA, ESA, SSC, SXC & STSCI
I look for a red giant tonight.
A star late in its stellar evolution.
In a cloud that’s not a cloud.
How old we are. How we want
a supernova ending. How difficult is dying.
Professor Galileo of Padua made his lenses
and the sky was 20 times closer.
Mountains on the moon, and more moons
around Jupiter, and a celestial Milky Way
that led him – us – towards the future.
In 1610, Galileo published the story of his telescope and the results of his studies as The Starry Messenger. He had been corresponding with German astronomer Johannes Kepler, who also believed that the Sun, not the Earth, was the center of the solar system. Kepler had been urging Galileo to go public with his theories for years.
I had believed that when Galileo was tried and convicted by the Church for heresy, he was tortured and excommunicated. But, in fact, he remained a loyal Catholic his entire life.
The Milky Way and the major and minor Magellanic Clouds as seen by NASA‘s SOFIA in the southern sky from New Zealand.
Known to ancient navigators of the seas
as markers in their endless night sky,
looking like starry clouds, distant heavenly mountains,
named by one on Magellan’s Earthly circumnavigation –
two galaxies circling our own for eternity.
Surprised seeing the Moon and blue sky,
like seeing the shining sun at night.
We know the stars are always there.
Our galaxy, the Milky Way, is above.
Cosmic reminders of that taken for granted.
Traveling through crystals, lightly frozen, I rise
from this earth into the neighboring sky
and into that dense region between stars,
interstellar clouds, and Magellanic clouds, dwarf galaxies
near our Milky Way, Earth behind me.
Writing the Day 