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Galactic Clouds

By Harley White posted 02-23-2022 10:28

  



Image credit: R. Jay GaBany



Galactic Clouds
 
 
Alone or if billowing by in crowds
of earthly firmament skies overhead
we see lifelike images in the clouds
and even in vastness of cosmic spread.
 
Stargazers of yore with fabulous tags
affixed so called constellations perceived,
from hunters chasing empyreal stags
to tresses of waiting lovers relieved
 
upon the return from war of their flame,
as ‘twas in Coma Berenices’ tale,
a woman authentic lending her name
to asterism whose stellary trail
 
was noted in the Hellenistic age
or maybe much earlier as per some,
at present defined on Milky Way’s stage
as one of the eighty-eight, stemming from
 
the shapes discerned imaginarily
wherein patterns myriad might appear
from legend and mythos primarily
and termed constellations on vaulted sphere.
 
In verses from former poem I wrote
entitled ‘Empyrean Mice’, were said
in stanzas which I shall proceed to quote
these lines on the theme of that passel’s thread.
 
‘Some sixty-two million light-years away
in Coma Berenices or her Hair,
the one constellation midst the array
that’s named for a figure historic ere—
 
‘the queen Egyptian who offered her locks
as votive sacrifice, thereby to gain
a place immortal among heavens’ flocks
within celestial immenseness to reign—‘
 
a huge umbrella made up of star streams
by gravity pulled from galaxy small
torn up from coming apart at the seams
is stretched into gigantic parasol.
 
This seeming universe all on its own
with faint umbrella many light-years long
suggested a nanny in cosmic zone,
out of sight, with knack to right any wrong.
 
It’s Mary Poppins of course whom I mean,
bewitchingly bettering children’s homes,
that lady enduring on silver screen
or storied by P. L. Travers in tomes,
 
whose own tragic childhood inspired no doubt
the English nanny, blown in on windstorm,
through touches of magic sprinkled about
to later entire families transform.
 
Umbrellas date back to centuries past
as canopy shading for rain or shine
depending upon the weather forecast,
depicted in art of diverse design.
 
We could use drizzles and showers these days
where I’m now dwelling, alack and alas.
Should I ply rain rhymes of pluvial praise
or might Mary Poppins bring it to pass?
 
Formally NGC Four Six Five One,
the galaxy spiral, ‘peculiar’ styled
by virtue of filaments outward spun
is in Atlas which Halton Arp compiled,
 
as Arp One Hundred Eighty-nine numbered,
the catalogue from nineteen sixty-six
of aggregates with warpings encumbered,
this astro-watcher’s particular picks.
 
Whene’er stargazing we’re apt to be swept
by staggering mammothness out in space.
Meantime on earth machinations have leapt
beyond the pale, to our human disgrace.
 
Word definitions conveniently change
with science inventing engineered ills
from stances deranged, but no longer strange,
for swallowing ever bitterer pills.
 
While lies masqueraded cannot be truth
regardless of trappings, flounces, or frills,
still fact, even for the painstaking sleuth,
is nearly unfound, which gives me the chills.
 
Let us not lose our questioning spirit,
for fear of certitude’s moral abyss
where one cannot harbor doubt nor hear it
as prisoner of a hypothesis.
 
Indeed this becomes a perilous pose,
till we neither see what’s under our nose,
as in case of the emperor’s new clothes,
nor concede the need to heed cons and pros.
 
Yet lust for power and greed take the helm
as knowledge is wielded to blur our view
and cloud mortal vision of worldly realm
on beautiful planet of baby blue.
 
How do I finish this disjointed rhyme,
which took a turn to polemical phase,
beginning from cloud-covered cosmic clime?
I’ll raise up my musings to starward gaze.
 
So Keats did, when he ‘beheld night’s starred face’
replete with ‘cloud  symbols of high romance’,
albeit knowing he’d ‘not live to trace
their shadows, with magical hand of chance’.
 
Clusters and Superclusters galactic
collect together with satellites each.
In Local Group of attractive tactic
some are occluded by Milky Way’s reach.
 
And thus the totality is obscured,
though of at least eighty, through scopic sleight,
astronomers seem more or less assured.
Ay how often we stand in our own light.
 
 
~ Harley White
 
 
* * * * * * * *
 
 
Some sources of inspiration were the following…
 
Coma Berenices (Wikipedia)…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coma_Berenices
 
Quotes from my poem “Empyrean Mice”…
https://my.astronomerswithoutborders.org/blogs/harley-white1/2021/10/25/empyrean-mice
 
Quotes from “When I have Fears That I May Cease to Be”, sonnet by John Keats (published posthumously in 1848)…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_I_Have_Fears
 
Image and info ~ NGC 4651 (Wikipedia)…
 
Image ~ NGC 4651 (from Wikipedia). Note the umbrella-shaped stream.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Small_ngc4651.jpg
 
Explanation: Spiral galaxy NGC 4651 is a mere 62 million light-years distant, toward the well-groomed northern constellation Coma Berenices. About the size of our Milky Way, this island universe is seen to have a faint umbrella-shaped structure that seems to extend (right) some 100 thousand light-years beyond the bright galactic disk. The giant cosmic umbrella is now known to be composed of tidal star streams - extensive trails of stars gravitationally stripped from a smaller satellite galaxy. The small galaxy was eventually torn apart in repeated encounters as it swept back and forth on eccentric orbits through NGC 4651.Work begun by a remarkable collaboration of amateur and professional astronomers to image faint structures around bright galaxies suggests that even in nearby galaxies, tidal star streams are common markers of such galactic mergers. The result is explained by models of galaxy formation that also apply to our own Milky Way.
 
Image credit: R. Jay GaBany
 
 
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