Star Cluster R136 Bursts Out
Credit: NASA, ESA, & F. Paresce (INAF-IASF), R. O'Connell (U. Virginia), & the HST WFC3 Science Oversight Committee
Explanation: In the center of star-forming region 30 Doradus lies a huge cluster of the largest, hottest, most massive stars known. These stars, known collectively as star cluster R136, were captured above in visible light by the newly installed Wide Field Camera peering though the recently refurbished Hubble Space Telescope. Gas and dust clouds in 30 Doradus, also known as the Tarantula Nebula, have been sculpted into elongated shapes by powerful winds and ultraviolet radiation from these hot cluster stars. The 30 Doradus Nebula lies within a neighboring galaxy known as the Large Magellanic Cloud and is located a mere 170,000 light-years away.
**
A question has been raised as to why no sun exists in the Place of the Dead when a blue sky is sometimes intermixed with fluffy white clouds in the day which has the appearance of a dawn and a dusk as well as a night with a moon and stars for visual comfort.
From Earth there is but one sun. One sun is enough from my point of view. Besides with direct sunlight there would be strongly dark shadows. The only shadows in Elysium are caused by the individual heartsansoulsanminds that dwell in that Place. If the reader wants further reasons for no sun look into the imagination and discover what is wished for personal satisfaction. This follows the general line of thought the Dead pursue in their own post-existence.
***
Morning, the third day.
Kassi slowly awoke to find Thales appearing as a solid piece of gray marble next to her. She turned away from him slowly. Why do we each make ourselves into a stone effigy when sleeping dreamless? Thales is our dreamer without a dream? No sense in asking when he wakes up.
As dawn rose she thought, ‘We need to be forthright in this plan and find a way to confront Zeus and let him draw out the Supervisor.’ And, mumbled, “If nothing else we will see who holds the power here.”
“Who holds what power?” asked Thales suddenly.
“That was a quick wake up from a sound sleep.”
“How so?” grumbled Thales.
“You were a stone man not half a minute ago.”
“I had another dream.”
“Just now? How could that be? What was it about?”
“How we beat death.” He paused, “I dreamed the gods do not know how we beat death.”
Both of Kassi’s eyebrows rose. “Where I you getting this when stiff as stone you clearly were not dreaming.”
“I don’t know. I was dreaming and then I awoke. I was awake.” His blue eyes pleaded for an answer. “Dead to the world, then awake.”
Kassi declared, “We need to find if this is true?”
“Apollo will tell us the truth,” he quickly replied.
“Or a half truth.”
Thales shrugged his shoulders, “Who do we ask then?”
“Athena.”
“Why is it always a goddess rather than a god with you?”
“I don’t trust Zeus so why should I trust any lesser gods?”
Thales felt his emotional argument collapse as he did not trust Zeus either. He angrily shouted, “We are imprisoned here.” He waved his arms in high frustration, and abruptly piped, “We are same ones who argued we were imprisoned when we were alive.”
“Your dream makes a point with me. If the gods themselves don’t know why we are here, then what choice to they have but to keep us in this compound, in the Place that is away from Earth and from Olympus.”
“I don’t understand what you mean?”
“Whether the dream is true or not is not important,” said Kassi calmly. It gives us a strategy to develop. We want to know more about the gods, but they also need to know more about our species. We come up with stories about them and they also must have come up with stories about us. We need to know what their initial reaction was to our Mother coming here and making this Place a home for her and her children.”
What, he thought quietly, if the dream is a trick and the Supervisor is cleverly seeing how we are going to react to it – particularly if he doesn’t know as much as we think a god should know. The gods know our theology. Perhaps they show us what we already expect of them? This dream of going Home to Earth may not have been foreseen by Apollo or any of the others. We stand on very uneven ground here. My dreams may be unwittingly used to bring about our ultimate downfall, perhaps to a place far worse than the pit of Tartarus.
***
The Supervisor, disappearing a few inches deeper under the dust of the floor of the stone privacy, suddenly transformed into a cool breeze that seemed to Thales to come from the northeast corner of the room at the same time he felt a distinct short shiver in his tailbone become a bolt of lightning into his brain. Thales' eyes jumped at the earth-like floor and for less than a blink the floor became a distinct brown, the color of the irises of the goddess he had seen on the pathway two days earlier. Facial perfection, he thought with secret dread. No matter what I say or do I will be the ruination of this peaceful protest. I can mention this to no one. My deepest self is already surrounded from this toe touched terror.
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