Sometimes the Universe provides the perfect method to express our feelings.
A space cloud located 7,500 light-years away has given us the most appropriate farewell we can think of for all this one-year-old garbage fire, 2020.
This small cluster of material is part of a much larger cloud complex called the Carina Nebula and, under normal circumstances, would not be given a nickname of its own. But its distinctive shape has led scientists to call it the Defiant Finger.
And that’s exactly what it looks like: the millennial obscene gesture of “go do terrible things for yourself” and “leave, but with much rougher words.”
(NASA, ESA, N. Smith / UC Berkeley and The Hubble Heritage Team / STScI / AURA)
Actually, the challenging finger is what is known as the Bok Globule. These are small, dark, dense nodes of dust and gas that are often the birthplace of stars. As the denser regions of the cloud condense even further, they can collapse under their own gravity and begin to spin toward a star.
The challenging finger, which comprises 6 solar masses of material, may have stars forming inside it; because it is very dense, it is difficult to see inside. The glow that seems to come from external sources: the light of nearby bright stars.
(NASA, ESA, N. Smith / UC Berkeley and The Hubble Heritage Team / STScI / AURA)
Because young stars are usually bright and hot, they exploit their environment with radiation. The Defiant Finger balloon star is likely to be illuminated and ionized by Wolf-Rayet’s WR 25 star, a massive, very short-lived star at the end of its life; Tr16-244, a hot young supergiant; or a combination of both.
But as they light up, these stars also destroy: slowly but surely, they defy the defiant finger. At the current estimated rate of mass loss, the dust cloud has a projected lifespan of only 200,000 to 1 million years.
This is not very long in cosmic terms, nor very long. But it is enough to make a poetic statement: a cry in a vacuum, a defiant gesture in the face of inevitability. And a really appropriate way to close the door in 2020.
Thanks, space. And bring it to 2021.