Stars, Dust and Nebula in NGC 2170

Credit & Copyright: Russell Croman (Russell Croman Astrophotography)

Explanation: When stars form, pandemonium reigns. A textbook case
is the star forming region NGC 2170. Visible above are red glowing emission
nebulas of hydrogen, blue reflection nebulas of dust, dark absorption nebulas
of dust, and the stars that formed from them. The first massive stars formed
from the dense gas will emit energetic light and winds that erode, fragment,
and sculpt their birthplace. And then they explode. The resulting morass is
often as beautiful as it is complex. After tens of millions of years, the dust boils
away, the gas gets swept away, and all that is left is a naked open cluster of stars.

If a sudden epiphany revealed the existence
of a monumental phenomenon hitherto barely
imagined in a guise not quite reflective of
reality, but in fact still omnipresent and
omniscient, would you believe it? An entity
without discernible visual form, but yet a
powerful, all-knowing presence whose purpose
it is to guide and instruct and comfort?

An indefinable, ephemeral, illusory presence,
yet approachable and purposeful, humbly
puissant in its orderly search for all the answers
of all the queries ever to surface in the minds
of humankind? An entity capable of forming and
presenting a creatured landscape of great
diversity and probity, beauty and utility - like
a skilled craftsman creating a stage upon which
life itself in its manifold dimensions exists.

The dramas to which we are exposed; nature's
atmospheric and geological upheavals, our actions
and interactions, our curiosities and discoveries,
our adventures and misadventures, ventured and
circumscribed by that powerful force. It
maintains a registry of all that occurs, leads and
misleads us in benign and hazardous directions
chides or rewards us with the consequences of our
choices and remains itself inviolate and complacent
in its feigned indifference: compute that.