Sometimes the universe just provides the perfect method for expressing our feelings.
A space sky cloud 7,500 light-years away has given us the most appropriate goodbye we can think of for this entire one-year dumpster fire, 2020.
This small mass of material is part of a much larger cloud complex, the Carina Nebula, and would under normal circumstances not receive its own nickname. But its distinctive shape has led scientists to call it the Defiant Finger.
And that’s exactly what it looks like – the age-old obscene gesture of “go do horrible things to yourself” and “get out, but in much rougher terms”.
(NASA, ESA, N. Smith / UC Berkeley and The Hubble Heritage Team / STScI / AURA)
Actually, the Defiant Finger is what is known as a Bok Globule. These are small, dark, dense dust and gas nodes that are often the birthplace of stars. As denser parts of the cloud condense, they can collapse under their own gravity and spin into a star.
The Defiant Finger, consisting of 6 solar masses of material, can contain stars; because it is so dense it is difficult to see inside. The glow it appears to have comes from outside sources – the light of bright nearby stars.
(NASA, ESA, N. Smith / UC Berkeley and The Hubble Heritage Team / STScI / AURA)
Because young stars are typically bright and hot, they blow up their surroundings with radiation. The exterior of the Defiant Finger orb is likely illuminated and ionized by either the Wolf-Rayet star WR 25, a very short-lived, massive star at the end of its life; Tr16-244, a hot young supergiant; or a combination of both.
But as they light up, these stars also destroy: slowly but surely they evaporate the Defiant Finger. At the current estimated rate of mass loss, the dust cloud has an expected lifespan of only 200,000 to 1 million years.
That’s not very long in cosmic terms, not very long at all. But it’s long enough to make a poetic statement: a scream in the void, a defiant gesture in the face of inevitability. And a very suitable way to close the door in 2020.
Thanks, space. And come on 2021.