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Astral Oyster Cluster
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An Oyster Cloud that’s starry pearled
of light-years distant from our world
two hundred thousand is in years
five million old from where appears
our Earth in Solar System twirled.
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Such mollusks oceans have unfurled
of many types within shells curled
bear likeness to in stellar spheres
an oyster cloud.
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The seas of stars about us swirled
as we live lives in which we’re hurled
amongst our planet’s current peers,
which some regard as ‘vale of tears’,
have spawned a site around which whirled
an oyster cloud.
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~ Harley White
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* * * * * * * * *
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The poem is in the form of a rondeau…
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A source of inspiration was the following…
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NGC 602: Oyster Star Cluster (APOD: 2024 Jul 02)
Image Credit: X-ray: Chandra: NASA/CXC/Univ.Potsdam/L.Oskinova et al; Optical: Hubble: NASA/STScI; Infrared: Spitzer: NASA/JPL-Caltech
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap240702.html
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Explanation: The clouds may look like an oyster, and the stars like pearls, but look beyond. Near the outskirts of the Small Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy some 200 thousand light-years distant, lies this 5 million year old star cluster NGC 602. Surrounded by its birth shell of gas and dust, star cluster NGC 602 is featured in this stunning Hubble image, augmented in a rollover by images in the X-ray by the Chandra Observatory and in the infrared by Spitzer Telescope. Fantastic ridges and swept back gas strongly suggest that energetic radiation and shock waves from NGC 602's massive young stars have eroded the dusty material and triggered a progression of star formation moving away from the star cluster's center. At the estimated distance of the Small Magellanic Cloud, the featured picture spans about 200 light-years, but a tantalizing assortment of background galaxies are also visible in this sharp view. The background galaxies are hundreds of millions of light-years -- or more -- beyond NGC 602.
#poetry