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Hidden within its shadowy depths, alone amongst the vast
nothingness that surrounds it, millions of years away from anything,
lies a cloud, a grey, gloomy cloud. Each ball of fluff just lays there still.
No wind to give it movement, no colour to give it essence. Although
lifeless on the outside, deep within its dusty skin, three pillars stand
tall. Surrounded by glistening little balls of light, dominating the
dreary shadows of neighbouring clouds, life sits among the lifeless,
among the Pillars of Creation.
The tallest one stands four light years tall, appearing so small
compared to the rest of its home. All around them, large stars come
to life, and others die, exploding like dynamite, then slowly becoming
a new star again. From a distance, you can take in their beauty. You
can see each shape and curve, and wonder at their elegance. But
closer up, you see the dust and the gasses that lie still amongst the
chaos as stars slowly form. Each star’s beginning is reckless as the
flames spark from the gasses pulled in by the hefty force of gravity as
it traps anything that ventures near. All the violence and heat creates
a sense of being at the epicentre of a super volcanic eruption.
Nothing is stable, strong wind-like forces smash the air around the
centre of the soon-to-be-born star. Although it takes years upon
years, finally beauty is born. Stars are forever treacherous balls of gas,
but as a little ball of sparkling light adding life to the darkness of
space, they are peaceful beings in the night sky.
Sadly, after its long life, there is no peaceful end; stars are always
going out with a bang, and a large one. The fiery ball slowly turns on
itself as it runs out of fuel to burn, and as it becomes more and more
unsettled, it explodes like a trip mine, sudden and fast, as you never
know exactly when a star might burst. As it launches parts of itself all
over space, it leaves a gas cloud, that will slowly be pulled together
and reform into the star’s heir, another to take its place again
amongst the many stars of the glorious Milky Way.
Out in distant space, little mostly happens. You can see the events
that occur in the galaxies around you, but you don’t know what it
would be like to be in them, all you can do is stare at the beauties of
each star that creates its own light to find its way in the vast, blackness
that circles it. At the galaxies that slowly merge together in a rage of
galactic cannibalism, or at the black holes, invisible round balls
bending space and time, engulfing anything that comes near them,
compacting it in their infinite gravity, erasing it from existence.
The Pillars
Of Creation
Alicia Jones
9