Stars (The anthropocene reviewed)

This was a creative writing essay produced indepedently by the writer.

Image obtained from "What Makes Stars Twinkle?" ESA/Hubble/NASA

Stars are created from collapsions of frigid clumps consisting of gas and dust. Hence, friction heats the clumps up, and eventually develop into a protostar. There is an estimate of hundreds of billions of stars in our galaxy, while 200 sextillions, a rather senseless concept to us, linger in the universe. In a rough picture, there are approximately 7 sextillion grains of sand in all the beaches and deserts on Earth, and about 1.3 sextillion litres of water. NASA defines it as a giant ball of hot gas - "mostly hydrogen, with some helium and small amounts of other elements".

Yet, people tend to gaze into a bottomless night sky and are willingly engulfed by an exuberance of regret, loneliness, and perplexity for the future—

We are forever searching for an answer, or at least a tinge of consolation that keeps us going.

Egyptian star charts indicate that pharaohs and nobles associated stars with their gods or thought they could be deified by becoming immortal stars in the night sky. Mesopotamian goddess of love and warfare, lanna, was strongly associated with the brightest star-Venus. Moreover, in Biblical terms, these glimmers of shining iron are believed to be God's creation on the fourth day in declaration of His sublime glory.

We never know, and never will know, what lies beyond the border of death or prehistory. Nor do we have the capability of making a solid statement of humanity's discoveries; we read from standard science textbooks the Big Bang theory, conjectured from a rigid scientific model, supported by an accumulated base of scattered evidence. And thus, do we often fail to see the ignorance of our cognitions. Again, the difference between humanity and a swarm of ants by the sandpit may not be galactic as expected. Recent research reflects on the subjective awareness of ants— for a jump to possessing self-consciousness, seven billion and nine hundred neurons are needed. Which is not yet one ten-thousandth of the number of stars in the universe.

Psychologists suggest that humans are particularly attentive to people perceived as powerful or capable. It seems to be sculpted in our survival instincts that we naturally look up to powerful figures in awe. Then it makes sense to see that a hundred thousand years ago, burials and ritual objects had suggested signs of spirituality. Perhaps the minuteness of mankind propelled religious beliefs to be a 'must'.

We gave meaning to stars— They carry way more than they are supposed to. It was us, mankind, who have disrupted them from their remote ruminations. In apology-

I give those giant hydrogen balls 4 stars.