Celestial Jellyfish

By Harley White posted 03-15-2022 09:29

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Image credit: Wide Field Optical: Focal Pointe Observatory/B.Franke

Celestial Jellyfish

A giant jellyfish was born
emitted from a neutron star
once on a whilom cosmic morn
amidst the stellar seas afar.

With tentacles from arcing crest,
medusa-like it hangs on high
cloudscaped with tendrils manifest
in astral sky of Gemini.

Exploding supernova yore—
whose light reached Earth so long ago
that last ice age was still at fore
and ocean levels then were low

by dint of all the ice around
compared to what they are today,
when history was oral bound
though art in caves was on display—

created nebula we see
dubbed ‘jellyfish’, made of debris
from remnant IC Four Four Three,
five thousand light-years from our spree

upon this tiny whirling world
of Man’s vaingloried destiny,
short-lived mid solar time unfurled,
in what’s to be or not to be.

If traveling at speed of light
it very well might take about
three hundred years of light-wave flight
to go across its width throughout.

The jellyfish on planet here
are oldest multi-organ group
of animals, found far and near
free-swimming often in a troop

that ocean currents might amass
together, and there is a class
immortal seeming, which can pass,
to prior stage, when foes harass.

In general, umbrella-shaped,
these creatures’ bells have trailing limbs
with stinging cells around them draped
to injure one who too close swims.

Pelagic animals, they dwell
in seas and oceans everywhere,
not all with venom to expel,
plus special senses; further they’re

adept at adaptation’s chain,
with range fantastic; by the way,
they manage well without a brain.
Could we learn from their résumé?

But back to Jellyfish in space,
a pulsar may have formed in blast,
or neutron star at rapid pace
which first burst inward, spinning fast.

The outer layers which caved in
bounced outward in that stellar scheme
of supernova with its spin
begetting radiation beam

that’s sweeping by like lighthouse ray,
perchance a beaconed message from
some bygone beings gone astray
in bleeping beats of warning drum.

Meanwhile on Earth we’re but a guest
to Mother Nature’s knowing eyes
in Goldilocks rare orbit blessed.
How sad that life Man fails to prize!

~ Harley White

* * * * * * * *

Some sources of inspiration were the following…

What Spawned the Jellyfish Nebula?

https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/chandra/what-spawned-the-jellyfish-nebula.html

The Jellyfish Nebula, also known by its official name IC 443, is the remnant of a supernova lying 5,000 light years from Earth. New Chandra observations show that the explosion that created the Jellyfish Nebula may have also formed a peculiar object located on the southern edge of the remnant, called CXOU J061705.3+222127, or J0617 for short. The object is likely a rapidly spinning neutron star, or pulsar.

Image credit: Wide Field Optical: Focal Pointe Observatory/B.Franke,

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