The Lagoon Nebula from GigaGalaxy Zoom
Explanation: The large majestic Lagoon Nebula is home for many young stars and hot gas. Spanning 100 light years across while lying only about 5000 light years distant, the Lagoon Nebulae is so big and bright that it can be seen without a telescope toward the constellation of Sagittarius. Many bright stars are visible from NGC 6530, an open cluster that formed in the nebula only several million years ago. The greater nebula, also known as M8 and NGC 6523, is named "Lagoon" for the band of dust seen to the left of the open cluster's center. A bright knot of gas and dust in the nebula's center is known as the Hourglass Nebula. The above picture is a newly released, digitally stitched panorama of M8 taken as part of the GigaGalaxy Zoom project by the Wide Field Imager attached to the MPG/ESO 2.2-meter Telescope at the La Silla Observatory in Chile. The vista spans three times the diameter of the Moon, while the highest resolution image version occupies over 350 million pixels. Star formation continues in the Lagoon Nebula as witnessed by the many globules that exist there.
**
Morning, the fifth day. Today appears as any other among the Dead. To build a bridge is the unifying theme of the day. Marios is in charge of construction. Let’s listen in.
He glanced at Thales in sight of a blink and said, “Which of you want to assist me with this bridge building?”
Thales responded, “I think Salamon is better suited.”
“I don’t get along with Sophia as well,” acquiesced Salamon.
Marios quipped, “None of us get along with her as well as her ladies.” They laughed bravely as well as heartily.
Then Thales with bright blue eyes and a manly grin intimated, “I think we each know her privacy chamber very well.” This was followed with more comradery and laughter.
“Women,” declared Salamon with renewed aplomb.
“Never point a finger at the opposite sex!” hammered Marios. All three suddenly adolescent-like minds flashed on the statement and laughed again.
“Not a finger,” saluted Thales.
“Back to the bridge,” sobered the still tearing Marios.
“I’ll take it,” uttered Salamon ending with the echo of a tightly concealed smile. “How are we linking stones for the lead off tower?”
“Lengthwise one way and end stone the next, stretcher and header.”
“We can spend time on the tower entrance and go out two or three arches.”
“You’ll have a fine pier but no fish below,” commented a much more relaxed Thales.
“I don’t think anyone has swum out more than a few hundred yards and back,” said Marios.
“Why not just swim it?” replied Thales.
Salamon answered, “The water becomes effervescent and everything sinks.”
Salamon answered, “The water becomes effervescent and everything sinks.”
“So we pile the stone a foot or so above the River creating a wood plank as far out as we can to make the next deep pillar down,” stated Marios.
“We don’t know how deep,” lamented Thales, “or how wide.”
“If worse comes to worst we could construct wooden pilings topped with a stepping stone and one could leap from one to another,” proposed Salamon jokingly.
“It has been proposed by the engineers that we make the bridge sixty feet wide at the tower entrance.”
“Ludicrous,” interrupted Salamon.
“I agree. Twenty feet at most,” aired Marios.
“You only need a yard at most,” reasoned Thales. “You are not marching an army. You only need send one across.”
“Sophia wants more. She wants us to go in mass and rise from our graves.”
“When did she tell you this, Mario?” groaned Thales.
“She knocked me up early,” he beamed.
Mario’s two friends razzed and parodied the discrete early morning circumstance almost uncontrollably.
Clearly this is not a good morning for focusing on the project, thought Thales. I am bringing no good to this. Hades is no doubt listening in and mocking me somewhere in his private chambers.
***
The same time the men joked in their modest fraternal forum, Kassi sat with Sophia in the backroom at The Mikroikia discussing the bridge design.
“Which design gives a deeper impression,” asked Kassi, “ Wooden arches on stone pillars or the effect of the stone arch and pillar moving solid under the water?”
“Wooden arches would give a military effect and send a message as such.”
“Do you really think we ten thousand will be able to cross this bridge and return to our graves to rise up?”
“I like the theatre of it.”
“The bridge is only a symbol, Sophia.”
“I know, but the gods don’t know that.”
Maybe they do, thought Kassi. She said, “We had talked about gaining Hera’s trust. It would help if we had some goddesses and Apollo on our side.”
“We can move stone hill if need be. We can do what we need to do to allow us to go Home.”
“It would help if we understood the composition of the water of the Styx. Some say it fizzes and foams further out.”
“Rumors. No one knows,” noted Sophia. “It acts like a river but who knows what it is other than a barrier to keep us Here. It is a moat to keep us in and others out. We can’t go further than we are. Where would we go? We have to return to the Living.”
“I agree with you completely on this,” replied Kassi dutifully. “We have to outwit the gods.”
“Zeus and Hera have never lived. They do not know us, whereas we are now immortal and have mortal memories. We need to use this as an advantage.”
“It sounds like you want to use the wooden arches as it will make the construction much faster.”
“We can go out a few hundred yards,” said Sophia. “In the meantime we need to have people interrogate the recent Dead to see if we can find abnormalities in the arrival here. We need to find advantages.”
“I agree,” stated Kassi with enthusiasm. “If we could just fly like eagles.”
“Or swim upstream like salmon,” retorted Sophia while she quietly reckoning, ‘we are higher animals with accorded minds. We can do more than fly and swim.’
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