Stars, as far as we know, all form the same way. In the gassy expanse of a nebula—itself a remnant of a dead star—atoms of hydrogen fall into each other’s gravity and begin to orbit one another. Their shared mass creates a small well, which curves space and draws more atoms into a dance. As more join, the dance speeds up and, as it does, it generates heat.
Eventually enough atoms join this dance that things not only grow hot but crowded. Atoms start to disturb one another, nearly run into others. Eventually, the heat and the press of the crowd push two atoms together, and…something explosive happens.
As I write this our sun’s atoms are continuing this dance, which began eons ago. Hydrogen atoms are combined to become helium, causing an incredible amount of energy to be released. Energy that is transmitted as heat and light that crosses ninety-three million miles to our soil and skin. And, it’ll keep doing this for several million more years.
Today is Ash Wednesday, a day we start a new season by reminding ourselves and each other that we’re human. Our short lives barely register against the long lifespan of our sun. And where it will leave behind a cloud of gas that can glow in brilliant colors, we will become dust, gray and dull.
This can be a depressing thought. I’m small and finite and weak. I don’t shine like the sun. What little light I reflect can’t even illuminate a small room. Stellar remnants fill light-years and their glow can be seen across the galaxy for millions of years. All signs I was here will, in a couple of generations, be gone. Except, of course, the dust that is caught in the wind to glow as motes in the sunlight.
Our sun’s rays have been filled with such small motes since it was young. After its fiery birth there were lighter elements in the remaining gas. In the heat of our proto-galaxy, some of these bits of hydrogen and helium were forged into heavier ones like calcium and carbon. They, however, amounted to little more than dust in the orbiting cloud.
Yet, in the heat and pressure as eons passed, some of that dust began to clump together, growing larger, attracting more particles as it began to spin. And, over time, as the dust clung to each other, the pressure subsided, the great heat began to cool.
And the dust had come together to form a new, beautiful world.
I love the focus on star dust this Ash Wednesday!!