Bugs and Spiders

So the exploration flotilla left Shapley 1 yesterday and began its trek towards the next waypoint, the mighty Lagoon Nebula, also known as Messier 8. What lay before us were some 1,000 light years and the approach towards the Sagittarius Gap. I could have taken the direct road, speeding towards the Lagoon, but I decided to take a detour and poke around some of the deep sky objects that lay, well, not exactly along the way, but in the exploration corridor the fleet was going to take anyway. 

I always wanted to see and travel to the Northern Jewel Box (NGC 6231). It is dubbed the V945 Scorpii Cluster by explorers and it is magnificent to behold even from afar. The cluster is very young and is thought to have formed directly from material from the Lagoon. However, there was enough time in the cluster for the first stars to collapse already, leaving behind the occasional black hole or neutron star.

En route to the cluster also lies a very interesting structure: The bipolar planetary nebula of NGC 6302, dubbed the Bug Nebula. You should definitely pay it a visit. The nebula allegedly formed after a very large star collapsed into a Wolf-Rayet object. The former star really must have been at the upper level to still produce a nebula ‘peacefully’ instead of having gone nova and blowing stuff apart much more violently. The star’s magnetic field acted as a containment for the ejected material and that – simply speaking – is why we see the nebula in its bipolar ‘hourglass’ shape. Like I said, go there and write a postcard to your loved ones.

If afterwards you are still not fed up with nebulae (before heading to the Lagoon Nebula) there is still the Red Spider Nebula (NGC 6537). It is some thousand light years away from NGC 6530 and the Bug Nebula, but hey, no rush! The Spider is a worthy sight. Contrary to the Bug Nebula the Spider does not seem to have a central star. In ancient astronomy texts there are references to a White Dwarf but so far all astrometric methods of locating it in terms of navigational data have failed. Maybe the dust disc in the centre is just too dense for astrometric pinpointing. What it has in common with the Bug Nebula (and in fact with many planetary nebulae) is its bipolar structure. The central star blew off much of its outer shells and the magnetic fields or maybe the gravitational influence of a massive binary star have forced the stellar ejecta into its peculiar form. Nice to behold and absolutely interesting for studying plasma physics.

These are just three of the more prominent examples of the in-betweens when travelling from Shapley 1 coreward. It is an area of space dominated by active molecular regions that still hold enough gas and dust to produce many stars. In fact, the whole area is classified as a H-II region and those nebulae in it are just the colourful and most visible hot spots of it, much like the Orion or Carina Molecular Complex. 

Space repeats itself, but now it’s time for the Lagoon and its beauty.

A Tribute To Harlow

Yes, we know today that the Milky Way is a big place full of lights and wonders and that we start each and every exploration trip from a pretty normal, if not outright boring place in the galactic disc. But that was not always so. Back in the 20^th century the scientific community based their world models around only one galaxy in the entire universe and the firm belief that Sol was located in the very center. So far, so good, 'barbaric times' you might want to put forward as an argument. Looking back now, 1,300 years later, we allow ourselves to be that arrogant, but we omit the fact that science never was and will be a static thing. It belongs to the Frontier and the new Horizons we open up with each passing day and light year.

It is because of this that the first 'real' waypoint couldn't have been selected at a more ideal point. The Distant Worlds flotilla assembled at the planetary nebula named Shapley 1 (dubbed the Fine Ring Nebula, because from Sol we see a nearly perfect disc/ring). And it was that guy Harlow Shapley back in circa 1930 AD who through tireless observation and calculation deducted that the Milky Way had to be much bigger than it was thought back in the day, and he also found out that Sol was located at a dull spot near the fringe and not, as scientists believed, in the very center. Needless to say, he had a hard time and a Great Debate then about the fuss he created. Essentially, Shapley hadn't scratched at a pillar of the astronomical 'world' model, no, he just kicked it over.

Now, you might say 'Why is Shapley 1 so ideal as a first waypoint?' and I would answer 'Because from here we venture forth to show that the galaxy is a richer and bigger place.' Once again, we are at a threshold to commit ourselves to opening our eyes to the universe and to bring home a new idea of its vastness and beauty. 

 

I cannot think of a better and more symbolic place to start this endeavour...

Beyond The Abyss

It has been two months to the day that I made port for rest and recreation in Alioth. It's been busy and costly, since I eagerly wanted to upgrad my fuel scoop to a state-of-the-art one after all the time-consuming tanking back in the black. It's not that Stellar Cartographics makes you a rich person, you know. I mean, they can if you manage to give them tons of data from like thousands of celestials, it's just that you shouldn't be tempted to calculate an hourly wage on it. Anyway, the Intrepid is in good shape again (and so am I) and I was browsing through the long term Mission Board when I ran into Commander Kamzel again. You know that guy from the Galaxy Mapping Project I hooked up with on my Perseus Arm trip. He told me of another project he was setting up and on top of his former one so quite naturally I was interested in what he had to say and show. The result was an exchange of communication over the InterCom and, well, the idea of the project won me over. So I called the docks and ordered some other upgrades for my Asp and just hoped the workers wouldn't go on strike or the station into a lockdown (you know, all those maintenance shutdowns these days...).

And now, exactly two months later, I find myself on some small fringe world named Pallaeni; and what awaits is nothing less than the biggest concerted exploration endeavor this galaxy has ever seen (apart from the era of generation ships maybe). The big impact crater on Pallaeni's pole is bustling with activity, the comings and goings of many ships from throughout known - and unknown - space. What unifies us is the gigantic Distant Worlds Project, launched in 11/3301 AD shortly before my return from the Perseus Arm. It's an undertaking by multiple private and corporate consortiums, including the omnipresent Pilots Federation with the aim to provide a safe and mapped corridor of travel to the galactic core and beyond.

Needless to say, I was intrigued from the very first start and after some thoughts, preps and goodbyes I parked my good old Asp among all those pioneer in that crater. I had the option of an Anaconda-class retrofitted exploration cruiser, but it would not have felt right to leave my 'Intrepid' behind, that space lady that served me so well all those months out in the black.

The route is set and divided in a multitude of waypoints and basecamps. The first one is the planetary nebula Shapley 1, named after ancient days astronomer Harlow Shapley, the guy who found out that the Milky Way was way bigger than it was thought and that Earth lay in a pretty boring spot of it and not in the center. He sure had a hard time then making his point.

The route from Pallaeni towards Shapley 1 was of course dotted with the homing beacons of many ships. All from explorers who agreed to share instant location data with each other. I think this alone speaks for mutual trust and the will to fly and work together. When compared to all the bickering and political schemes going on in the Bubble I sometimes wonder if it's out here in the unknown that people can together find what you might call galactic peace. We just have to tread carefully in uncharted space because you never know what waits there.

Part of the fun of it, really...