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Cosmic Cathedral
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What grand cathedral seems to grace the skies
perhaps of Gothic cast with pointed arch
whose cloud-capped towers golden-hued arise
like leafage autumn aureate of larch
for poet laureate to eulogize!
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Within the open cluster that we see,
called Pismis twenty-four, the experts guess
one star or three in close proximity,
from distance, brilliance reckonings profess,
according to how scholars’ may agree,
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could be two hundred times the mass of Sun,
though lately it is thought to be at least
a trio of sidereals that stun
our vision, by the multiples increased,
unless these current notions be undone.
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The star components even so would stay
at near a hundred solar masses yet
which make them ‘midst most massive ones they say
that astral systems currently beget
amongst the vast stelliferous array.
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Oh endlessness displayed in great immense,
how your illusive poesy unheard
doth tease us out of thought and out of sense
in wordless fantasies your wonders stirred
encased in musings of wherefores and whence,
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like evocation of cathedral guise
to captivate a starry gazer’s eyes…
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~ Harley White
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With a curtsy to Keats…
Ode on a Grecian Urn
By John Keats
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44477/ode-on-a-grecian-urn
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Heavyweight Stars Light Up Nebula NGC 6357 (NASA Hubble site)…
https://hubblesite.org/contents/media/images/2006/54/2020-Image.html
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NGC 6357: Cathedral to Massive Stars (APOD)
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap160327.html
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NGC 6357: Cathedral to Massive Stars
Image Credit: NASA, ESA and Jesús Maíz Apellániz (IAA, Spain); Acknowledgement: Davide De Martin (ESA/Hubble)
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Explanation: How massive can a normal star be? Estimates made from distance, brightness and standard solar models had given one star in the open cluster Pismis 24 over 200 times the mass of our Sun, making it one of the most massive stars known. This star is the brightest object located just above the gas front in the featured image. Close inspection of images taken with the Hubble Space Telescope, however, have shown that Pismis 24-1 derives its brilliant luminosity not from a single star but from three at least. Component stars would still remain near 100 solar masses, making them among the more massive stars currently on record. Toward the bottom of the image, stars are still forming in the associated emission nebula NGC 6357. Appearing perhaps like a Gothic cathedral, energetic stars near the center appear to be breaking out and illuminating a spectacular cocoon.
#poetry