Chapter from: "The Milky Way Autobiography of Our Galaxy" by Dr. Moya Maktir, Mater Publishing. Translation: Adi Marcuse Hess, editing: Helit Yanai
the astrophysicist Moya from Katir, conveys to us the personal and exciting story of the Milky Way galaxy. For billions of years our galaxy has witnessed life on Earth, watching 100 billion people come and go, immersed in their daily lives, while itself immersed in an unbearable sense of loneliness. After hearing its story told by others, the Milky Way galaxy, for all the 100 billion stars and 50 undecillion tons of gas and dust that make it up, decided to tell it itself.
In this fascinating autobiography, the galaxy tells its readers everything that humans have discovered about it, starting with its formation following the Big Bang 13 billion years ago, through its expansion in space at an ever-increasing rate, until its death that will come in a few billion years, and also everything that is still hidden from our eyes and more remains for us to learn about her.
After such a long time, the galaxy felt that it had gained enough experience to tell its turbulent history in full, and its story is full of fascinating information about galaxies, black holes, dark matter and also about ancient folk legends, all of which are given in the necessary scientific-astronomical detail. The Milky Way Brings readers a fascinating story that summarizes human knowledge about the universe we live in and is presented to readers in an original and unusual style.
Dr. Moya Maktir She is an astrophysicist and folklore expert, a graduate of Harvard University. She received her doctorate in astrophysics from Columbia University, where she was selected as a National Science Foundation research fellow. McTeer serves as a consultant to companies such as Disney and PBS on fictional worlds.
The Milky Way Chosen as the best book of 2022 by Publishers Weekly
Chapter 4: Creation
Before I get into that, do you realize how lucky you are to be learning this vital information directly from me, from an actual galaxy? You probably would have been just as amazed if it had been Larry, almost a dwarf, who had written the things, although I assure you that Larry's explanations were far less entertaining than mine. The fact that I am telling you this story - my story - is a gift. It's like you were learning about... who do you admire? It's as if Beyoncé would take time out of her "busy" schedule and give you a personal singing lesson. But even this example doesn't come close to what I'm doing - after all, it's not watching over 100 billion stars.
Your ancient ancestors did not have such a book, nor the sophisticated devices your scientists use, nor knowledge accumulated over thousands of years that you can benefit from. They knew nothing about the truth of the Big Bang. Instead, they had gods: powerful, immortal, otherworldly beings who created and sustained the ever-changing universe. Your ancestors drew the best conclusions they could from the information available to them with their weak human senses, just as you do. Or at least as you should drive.
This hard work, which involves trying to find meaning in the world around them, inspired in them a healthy reverence for your devoted lady. And even though I'm not a god, nor do I believe in any god, I still appreciate a good story, especially one that has a grain of truth in it - and even, without an iota of selfishness, if it doesn't include me. But let's be honest, the stories that include me are always better than the ones that I'm not in. While I could tell you about the most popular creation myths, or the ones most people believe in, your life is very short, so I skip right to the ones I prefer.
I mentioned that the universe is constantly changing. I hope you understand by now, thanks to science and the wonders of the modern publishing world, that the universe is changing, changing shape, expanding. If you were forced to settle for the most basic form of learning, you would think the universe is stable and fixed in time, because that's how it appears from your limited human perspective. And yet, somehow, some of the creation stories told by your ancestors describe a universe that is in constant flux, sustaining an endless cycle of birth and destruction. Some of your modern astronomers tell a similar story, but they tell it in the language of mathematics and computer code instead of words.
One of these cyclical cosmogonies (that is, theories dealing with the beginning of the universe) originated with a people who lived in the Indus River Valley (now Pakistan and western India) more than 4,000 years ago. They held a religion called Hinduism, which is the oldest of your planet's most popular faiths. Hindus believe that the god Brahma created the cosmos itself - words such as "universe", "world", and "cosmos" were more or less synonymous before they were fixed in their modern scientific definitions - and that yours is not the first he created.
Brahma is not the only god in the Hindu religion, not at all. In fact, the idea of the existence of a single true God is relatively new. There is also Vishnu, the guardian, the god who maintains the balance of the cosmos. It is no wonder that Vishnu is often associated with the sun, as both are seen as sustaining life on earth.[1] To complete the circle there is the god Shiva, who destroys the universe so that it can be rebuilt. But until the time of destruction comes, Shiva is considered the one who destroys the flaws and deficiencies of your world, therefore he is considered both good and bad at the same time. Together, these three gods, this triumvirate, act as a team responsible for the movement of the universe in its cycle, each playing their part in due time, until the end of infinity. Or, as far as I know about immortals, until they get bored of doing the same thing over and over again. But maybe I'm misrepresenting myself.
3,000 years later, and 7,000 kilometers to the north, Nordic tribes told their cosmogony, which had a grain of truth in it. The stories were passed down orally through countless generations, and in the process, the far-from-perfect human memories, and your whimsical personal preferences, introduced slight variations each time, until they were written down in your thirteenth century AD. Christianity was already well established in the northern countries by then, and even I find it difficult to say how much the poetic eda passed from word of mouth, and the prose eda that was written down, differed from the pagan stories heard around the fires of the ancient Vikings. To be honest, I didn't pay much attention to them. The Middle Ages of humanity were boring and I was busy with other things.
The poetry and stories of the Edda describe a huge chasm that stretched between the first two worlds: Muspelheim, the world of fire, and Nipelheim, the world of ice. Frost and flames met in the middle, and a giant god was born from the melting ice. His name was Ymir, and he was later murdered by creatures that emerged from his body, and his organs were used to build other worlds in the Norse universe. There are nine such worlds in all, including separate abodes for gods and humans. According to the narrator, these worlds lived between the roots and branches of Yggdrasil, the giant tree of the universe.
Later I will add more details about my body and the shape of the real universe, but for now it is enough to say that space does not have the shape of a tree by any standard. Actually, maybe it can look like something reminiscent of the roots of a tree, if you look at it from a far enough distance.
And yet, the Norse story has that improbable kernel of truth that I love so much. Life emerged in the center of an abyss, between worlds of ice and fire, when the temperature was just right. True for what, you ask? For the existence of liquid water of course. Well, that spilled stuff you're all stuffed with, and so dependent on. The Norse peoples, who lived on a literal land of fire and ice (volcanoes and glaciers), were eyewitnesses to how life can thrive where the two meet. Water, like the sun, nourishes your small and fragile bodies, therefore it also often finds its way into your most sacred stories.
Many of the stories of creation told by your ancestors did not begin in chaos or in a complete void, but in a deep primordial ocean. My favorite of these involve a divine creature diving to the bottom of the ocean to collect handfuls of mud which he then uses to build the earth. The diver often appears in some animal form, a magical and playful image, and many of the stories involve a large number of failed attempts until the mud from the ocean floor is successfully collected.
Descriptions of this type, sometimes referred to collectively as the Earth Diver Myths, are common among the indigenous peoples of North America. But similar stories can also be found in modern Turkey, Northern Europe and Eastern Russia. Some of the humans who devote their short lives to tracing the evolution of the stories of your ancestors - you call them folklorists or anthropologists - believe that the myths of the earth diver share a common ancient narrative that originated in East Asia, from where it spread, with the migrations of the people, to other places.
Obviously, the story of the earthly diver as a creation myth focuses on the creation of the earth on Earth, as if it were the center of your insignificant little rock. You would think that would make me want to continue, but that would be a mistake on your part. The Earth was indeed the universe of your ancestors in every way. And life on Earth did begin in water. Humanity is the last attempt of a life form after so many catastrophic failures. More species have become extinct than those that still live on your planet.1 (Rest in peace, trilobites. I had high hopes for them.) There is then quite a bit of truth in the stories of the terrestrial diver.
I never expected your ancestors to know everything about me. They obviously appreciated my presence, so I contented myself with listening to their stories and watching them as they steadily marched towards science not knowing what they were going to find. It was entertaining, and also somewhat inspiring.
But your ignorance of the vast universe around you is neither entertaining nor inspiring. The tools, experts and knowledge are all at your disposal, but you are not using them. That's why I finally made a decision to intervene.
When you read the rest of my story - and I remind you again that this is a privilege - remember that you are no wiser than your ancestors who believed that the sky was the skull of a dead giant. You are just lucky because you were born later.
[1] "Earth" here as a translation for earth. This is not to attribute to the Hindus the belief that the earth is a sphere. (the translator)
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One response
50 undecillion tons? How much does it cost in soccer fields?
It would have been better to write exponentially.