M1: The Crab Nebula from Hubble
Explanation: This is the mess that is left when a star explodes. The Crab Nebula, the result of a supernova seen in 1054 AD, is filled with mysterious filaments. The filaments are not only tremendously complex, but appear to have less mass than expelled in the original supernova and a higher speed than expected from a free explosion. The above image, taken by the Hubble Space Telescope, is presented in three colors chosen for scientific interest. The Crab Nebula spans about 10 light-years. In the nebula's very center lies a pulsar: a neutron star as massive as the Sun but with only the size of a small town. The Crab Pulsar rotates about 30 times each second.
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Sophia, with white toga wrapped loose around lay down alone for sleep and assumed she would shortly be stone-like but that was not to be for a dreamer’s dream she would soon in a golden vision see.
Sophia’s Dream on the Fourth Night
Genetic Mother Eve whispered to Sophia, “It is our turn to consider the next move. Your father is Fate for you but not me.”
Sophia responded, “Thought and memory are all we have here. Experience that was and now is.”
Mother: “We should move to better control the center of the field?
Sophia: “Won’t that be expected?”
Mother: “The Supervisor already began the Exercise with the first move. She already is aware of all our moves.”
Sophia: “Then why do she wish to have the Exercise?”
Mother: “We cannot anticipate the Supervisor’s cunning.”
Sophia: “She can anticipate, but we have free will and we are built to use it.”
Mother: “The Supervisor is not a family of gods or even one god. She is here to keep us in our place for our own good, as a parent would.”
Sophia: “Why do we make mischief then?”
Mother: “It is our inclination to question what is.”
Sophia: “I say we move to a flank immediately. She will not expect it.”
Mother: “Right or left?”
Sophia: “Better to stay in the field, move our forces right.”
Mother: “The species is created to bare living children.”
Sophia: “To live beyond freedom and dignity? Mother, we are more than child-bearing machinery.”
Mother raised an eyebrow: “Tit for tat.”
Sophia: “We can be as quick witted as the Supervisor.”
Mother: “Our forces are down one and a Crown will be taken.”
Sophia: “No matter. Supervisor cannot expect our next move.”
Mother: “Even though She started it.”
Sophia: “We thought the Rebellion first.”
Mother: “I feel that She moved first.”
Sophia: “We have to trust ourselves.”
Mother: “To do what, lose?”
Sophia: “Losing is not our purpose here.”
Mother: “I did not know my purpose.”
Sophia: “We find ourselves Beyond; and in a body of ten thousand souls.”
Mother flared: “A hundred thousand passions.”
Sophia: “We have multiple souls.”
Mother: “Our minds are our purpose in this business.”
Sophia: “And our memories and hearts.”
Mother: “For what is my purpose if not to speak with my children?”
Sophia: “We have no other species to speak to.”
Mother: “Thought needs grammar.”
Sophia: “Our thought slows the Supervisor.”
Mother: “The Supervisor is beyond grammar's construction.”
Sophia: “How can She play our rebellion?”
Mother: “Like theatre.”
Sophia: “Alas, we do not exist in the real world of the Living.”
Mother: “We did. The Supervisor has not.”
Sophia: “The Supervisor’s not living in Life? This is a weakness we can exploit.”
Mother: “The Supervisor has the next move. We have made our play.”
***
Sophia awoke abruptly. “What was the dream?” she muttered. “Something about thought and grammar and about the Supervisor’s weakness and about our next move.”
She sat up on the edge of the bed and stared off into the southwest corner of her private walls. Her eyes moved slowly from the top corner to the bottom and back again several times, like a threading machine.
Sophia said aloud to the corner, “We need to thread ourselves with the Living. We must return to Earth and rise up from our graves whole-bodied. Then the Living would know the truth. We must find a way to raise ourselves up from our very graves.”
She waited for a reply but neither the top, the middle, or the bottom corner had anything to say. None of the four corners replied, nor did the walls, floor or open ceiling to the moon and stars. The rest of her night sat in uncanny silence. Sophia soon rested into a stone effigy resting on top of her bed of privacy. A tomb she became, surrounded by the significance of the common silence of the Dead.
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