UniVerses

Brim of Time

WMAP

brim of time

a few frail photons from the very brim of time
connect us through the tapestry of all that’s ever been
and stitch this fleeting instant into the cosmic lifeline
through a universe unfolded since God uttered: begin.
 
from what we know the atoms in this primal universe,
not formed until the temperature eventually cooled down,
consists of only hydrogen the mix was so dispersed
each proton isolated when its electron finally bound.
 
peculiar those galaxies whose ghosts survived their flight
like snapshots of a revelry whose participants are dead
i see the warmth and wonder what being there was like
in puzzled admiration at time’s distant fountainhead.

After awhile, things cooled and turned into plasma. In plasma, energy is so high atoms are unstable, and the result is a huge "soup" of electrons and nuclear particles. Our sun and the stars are examples of plasma.

The earliest signal we can detect from the beginning is called the Cosmic Background Radiation. The WMAP image from NASA illustrates the uneven density of matter within this first snapshot of the Cosmos. Like a weather map, yellow and red pixels are areas with relatively more matter, and dark blue areas where there is very little.

These clusters are enormous clouds of attoms which,  like seeds, provide the stuff from which stars and galaxies are made.

Text Copyright 2009 Robert Parker Lenk. All rights reserved.

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