Strange Universe

05/08/2020 –  Poem a Day Compilation



There’s a planet in our universe

With the wonderfully inventive name

Of HD 131399Ab

Which plays a very dangerous game.



Luckily, it’s located very far

From this tiny planet we call home

Around 340 light years away

Making safe our little biome.



But in the constellation Centaurus

Scorpion-1b, as we’ll call it for short,

Has a unique relationship

With the suns it wishes to court.



If Scorpion-1b were to be found

In our solar system by chance

It would dwarf even Jupiter and

Make astronomers take a second glance.



Its system has not just one sun,

Not two, but three suns in total

Linked to them in fine balance

And, by their gravity, it is motile.



Its orbit is extraordinarily long,

Taking 550 earth years to complete;

Around the biggest of the three stars

It meanders without missing a beat.



The other two stars are locked,

Orbiting each other in a kind of dance

Whilst also orbiting the central star

A magical thing upon which to glance.



For somewhat just over a century

Scorpion-1b has constant daylight

With all three suns visible

Beaming their rays so bright.



At other times during the year

The suns will rise and set

Giving a spectacular triple feature

Any photographer would pay to get.



But finding a place to stand

Might be hard going, you know,

What with it being a gas giant

It has no surface on which to go.



It’s unlikely to harbour any life

(conditions being unfavourable at best)

With liquid iron falling as rain

An umbrella would not stand the test.



It is a young planet, to be sure.

Only 16 million years, give or take.

And that gives us plenty of time

For discoveries aplenty to make.



So next time you search the skies

Be reminded of Scorpion-1b

And the billions of worlds left to find.

Oh, what treasures are left to see!

Compressed Universe

01/06/2020 – Iso Well-Being Compilation

 

Let’s take a wander

Through our magnificent and glorious past

As if all of time might be compressed

Into a single year of our lives.

 

Happy new year to the universe

It’s off to a tremendous start

A Big Bang and an expanding of everything

Begins us on a seemingly never-ending course.

 

Within just sixteen nanoseconds

Of our year having begun

We see the first stable nuclei form

From the matter that has been expelled.

 

By the 15-minute mark we find

The first neutral atoms have arrived

And the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation

Has been well and truly emitted.

 

A few days later the first stars appear,

Bright dots in an expanding cosmos

The light from which we may never see

Even with our most powerful telescopes.

 

By mid-January we can now confirm

The light of those distant stars

Will eventually reach our modern eyes

And be a source of marvel yet.

 

As the month draws to a close

The first Galaxy proto-clusters are observed

Like embryonic star groups

Finding their way in the dark.

 

Valentine’s Day whizzes past

With the largest scale structures forming then

We’re starting to look more recognizable

As the universe we will become.

 

March has rolled around by now

And we’re seeing mature galaxies form

Bright and iconic to our eyes,

Littering the depths of space.

 

Then in mid-April they start colliding

Pairs of spirals merging as one

And turning into great ellipticals

A galactic dance with no known steps.

 

We fly through May and onto June –

The first sun-like stars are dying –

Evolving into the planetary nebulae

That we all know and love.

 

The universe carries on like this

All through July and September

Creating and destroying

As it had all along.

 

On September 3^rd our sun appears

With its proto-planetary disc.

This will be our giver of life,

Where all life as we know it exists.

 

The Earth, it formed without satellites

Until it was impacted the very next day

By a large proto-planet

The debris coalescing to form our moon.

 

It was not until September 21^st

That the first life appeared on our planet –

Unicellular and, by our standards of today,

Completely unremarkable.

 

Life comes into its own

When sex appears on the scene

Though that wasn’t until December 2^nd,

Relatively, not that long ago.

 

Around December 17^th, we have the Cambrian Explosion

And life as we know it blooms.

Diversification is the rule right then

And it continues for a good, long while.

 

Extinctions come and extinctions go,

Until December 30, at 6:25am to be precise.

We lose the now beloved dinosaurs,

A meteorite strike thought to be to blame.

 

Mammals take over from that point

With the Homo Sapiens swaggering in

Just in time for New Year’s Eve,

A mere seven minutes left to spare.