4,000 light years from Earth, the Lagoon Nebula is seen with its swirling clouds of gas and dust in a pattern reminiscent of Van Gogh. This nebula provides astronomers an excellent opportunity to study the properties of very young stars. Many infant stars give off copious amounts of high-energy light including X-rays, which are seen in the Chandra X-ray data (in pink) to reveal the infant stars budding in the surreal nightscape. The X-ray data have been combined with an optical image of Messier 8 from the Mt. Lemmon Sky Center in Arizona.
Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO; Optical: Adam Block/Mount Lemmon SkyCenter/University of Arizona
I could’ve sworn I slept and dreamed all those blended years. And, I’d only fathomed the Moon as light to confess to and see by. Dread the Sun and suffer its gaze. Should the Sun be my father, the Moon is surely my mother. What sins have I, mother? How drenched were these sheets? The Moon is my mother. What horrors she has witnessed! And, watched her children all but quake and burn away under the heat of the eyes of her lover star. I know I threw myself awake to see the wreckage of my dreams, to burn away under the Sun.
How quickly harlot eyes become angelic when beheld by her children!
“O’ shiver not once more or ever, my child! Know the horror will end, when sunlight and moonlight drip down your chin, all those crimson ivory pillars will be cleansed by angel eyes all wreathed in purity and colored with honey, and all your secret sins and vile viciousness will weather away to nothing, and all the nightmares fade, and sweetly dreams dressed in silk will wrap you up, and those mouths full of teeth will close and let you rest, and hellfire quales will vanish, and the blood will clot, and your tears will return, those hewing Northern winds will hew no more, those hounds will gnash no more, your fevers will break, the swords will sheath, the breath will come, the glass will mend, the marks will fade, and raindrops will dance warmly and softly on your skin, and my child will sleep.”
I could’ve sworn I’d been asleep. Please, I thought I was asleep. I’m so sorry, I was asleep. Please, God, please, sleeping. And, now, I’m so tired. Please, I need to sleep. I’m so sorry, I’m so tired.
Should all my life be a dream, I’d suffer all the nightmare just to glimpse your eyes before I awoke. I’d awake to nightmare without you. And beg, oh I’d beg to sleep again just for one more glimpse of you.
Stars, galaxies, planets, nebulae, etc. Anything space or space-related.