There could be only a handful of people who do not get fascinated by the glamour of a clear night sky. When a billion tiny rhinestones are studded in an endless black velvet tapestry, who would not gasp at its beauty?
But is every little dot of light we see in the night sky a star? At a glance, they all look the same. But if we watch long enough we can see that some dots are brighter than the others. They have a pulsatile iridescence and look so alive. They are the real stars. Stars produce their own light. Though what we perceive are tiny dots, a star is a nuclear powerhouse that generates tremendous amounts of heat and light through nuclear fusions. They produce brilliance that travels light years far and lives on for billions of years. Stars get together and create constellations. Constellations do not fall apart. Also, stars are capable of powerful things. Be it the birth of a star or a death of a star, it involves a massive, and unfathomable amount of energy and brightness. Yet, we who live so far away perceive them as humble, tiny, and innocent dots. That is why we sing Twinkle, twinkle “little” star when in fact the human mind is even unable to comprehend their immensity.
There is another set of dots just like these. But they are static. Dimmer. But at a glance, one would not be able to say it from a star. These are the planets. Planets do not have light. But they are good at reflecting the light produced by the stars hence appearing so much similar to the stars to the ignorant eye. Planets have no existence without stars. They always orbit around a star, alone or in a group. But when you look at the night sky you can never identify around which star they are hovering. Some planets, like the Earth, harbour life thanks to a merciful star and the grace of the right positioning in the Goldilocks zone. But most of the planets as we know do not have anything beyond dead rock, ice, acid, molten glass, lava, deadly gases, and inaccessible (hence useless) diamonds. Apart from harbouring these useless and disastrous materials, planets become the foundation of the livelihood of fraudulent astrologers destroying people’s lives.
And there is a third kind, too. This is the most interesting kind. They come once in a blue moon and steal the show. They are bigger (because they are closer). More dramatic and a lot more impressive to the eye. They are comets. So-called stars with tails. When a comet shows up in the night sky, nobody talks about any other star as long as the comet is there. When a comet comes from nowhere, for some time, everybody forgets the glorious stars that had been there since eternity and even the planets they mistakenly counted as stars. But the thing about comets is that their story is far sadder and ephemeral. Comets do not stay in the vicinity for more than a week or two. The brighter they glow, the faster they die. They have no sturdy existence. They have no central anchor. They have no own light. Apparently, they don’t even have a tail as it is allegedly called. The glory of the tail says how fast they evaporate. And the best thing is that a comet is also a product of a star. It is only a star that can turn a lump of floating icy rock into a comet. BUT, they remarkably and successfully steal the show and make the star just an ordinary dot.
However, the stars do not mind for they know the plight of the comet. So they watch in patience as the comets do the catwalk across the sky, nose in the air, and clad in the beauty of their own demise. The stars might even be flinching as the comets are finally whisked back into the dark realm where they came from turning them back into a lump of rock and ice just like the midnight bell dispelled Cinderella’s magic.
Mind my saying, the night sky is not the only place this happens. But, in the sky, at least it is beautiful.