Tag: Galaxies

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Freckles by John Hawkhead

black hole horizon
the galaxy of freckles
mum used to own

by John Hawkhead

A black hole horizon, or event horizon, is a boundary around a black hole beyond which neither matter nor light can escape the black hole’s gravitational force. Any object that crosses the horizon is pulled irrevocably into the black hole and cannot return. It is currently thought that each of the estimated 200 billion large galaxies in the observable universe have a black hole at their centre – although some smaller galaxies do not. Black Holes grow by accreting stars, dust and gas that come too close to the horizon.

Although some human cultures believe in the concept of reincarnation, death is mostly considered to be a ‘point of no return’ regardless of any belief in an afterlife. This poem remembers the death of the poet’s mother and the freckles she had as a child.

Further reading:

‘Event horizon’, Wikipedia article, available: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Event_horizon

Author bio:

John Hawkhead (@haikuhawk.bsky.social) is a writer and artist from the south-west of England. His work has been published globally over the last 25 years, including three books of haiku / senryu: ‘Small Shadows’ and ‘Bone Moon’ (available from Alba Publishing. http://www.albapublishing.com/) and ‘Four Horse Parable’ (available from Nun Prophet Press).

Read more of John’s sciku here!

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Yearning by Quinn Clark

Galactic arms curl
Into tight spirals for warmth—
Sometimes, so do we.

by Quinn Clark

‘Yearning’ is inspired by the hot gas and plasma present between galaxies and within galactic clusters, as well as a sentimental connection to human thermoregulation. Although this hot intracluster gas ought to cool off, observations show a contradictory reduced cooling rate. Some astronomers theorise that this prolonged heat and turbulence could be due to interactions with matter flowing from supermassive black holes.

This poem first appeared in The Best Haiku Anthology 2024 published by Haiku Crush.

Further reading:

‘Staying Warm: The Hot Gas in Clusters of Galaxies’, 2014, Center for Astrophysics, Harvard & Smithsonian, available: https://www.cfa.harvard.edu/news/staying-warm-hot-gas-clusters-galaxies

Author bio:

Quinn Clark is a poet/author from England. An astronomy enthusiast, they have classified thousands of galaxies with the Zooniverse’s Galaxy Zoo project. Their poems have been published with New Writing North, Haiku Crush, The Customs House (as runner-up to The Terry Kelly Poetry Prize 2022), and Tour de Moon.

You can find out more about Quinn at their website: https://quinnclark.co.uk and by following them @adashofseaglass on Twitter, Bluesky & Instagram.

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All-Seeing by Scott Edgar

Galaxies can run
But can’t hide – Gravity’s lens
Will bring them to light

by Scott Edgar

This haiku explores the phenomenon of gravitational lensing, where the gravity of a massive object bends light from more distant galaxies behind it. This effect allows astronomers to detect and study galaxies that would otherwise remain hidden — brought into view by gravity itself.

Further reading:

‘Hubble’s Gravitational Lenses’, NASA Science, available: https://science.nasa.gov/mission/hubble/science/universe-uncovered/hubbles-gravitational-lenses/

‘Gravitational Lensing’, European Space Agency Hubble News, available: https://esahubble.org/wordbank/gravitational-lensing/

Author bio:

Scott is a father of five who finds peace in long desert hikes, wildflowers in mountain meadows, and the occasional perfectly shaped rock. He’s a self-published poet with three books out, including a collection of haiku, and a fourth on the way, the host of The Poet (delayed) podcast (available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts here: https://blessed-pine-5317.fireside.fm ), and the co-founder of “Torchlight,” a monthly arts and open mic event in Bountiful, Utah. He also practices law in solo practice, balancing the legal world with a steady pull toward creative life. You can follow Scott on Instagram @poetdelayed.

Read more of Scott’s sciku here.

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The Universe by Scott Edgar

Hubble found your truth:
Expanding faster, faster
Redshift was the key.

by Scott Edgar

Edwin Hubble used redshift (‘a shift in the light a galaxy emits toward the red end of the visible light spectrum’) to measure the velocity of galaxies and it was thereby determined that the universe is expanding at an ever increasing rate.

Further reading:

‘Hubble’s Law’, Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubbles_law

Author bio:

I am a lawyer by trade and poet by passion with a conceptual interest in physics and astronomy. I try to get lost in the deserts of the southwestern United States as often as I can. You can follow Scott on Instagram @poetdelayed.

Read more of Scott’s sciku here.

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Milky hourglass

Radio bubbles.
Milky hourglass light-years tall,
black hole at its neck.

Scientists observing the centre of our galaxy have discovered a pair of radio-emitting bubbles stretching hundreds of light-years above and below the central region of the Milky Way.

To find this vast hourglass structure, Heywood et al (2019) conducted observations at wavelengths near 23 cm – dense clouds of dust block visible light from the centre of the galaxy but this form of radio emission allows scientists to see past the clouds.

At the centre of the Milky Way is a supermassive black hole. Most of the time it’s relatively calm but it can flare up when especially large amounts of dust and gas fall into it, a possible explanation for the radio bubble formation. An alternative suggestion for how the bubbles were created is a “massive burst of star formation”, according to researcher William Cotton at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory in Virginia and one of the co-authors of the paper. Regardless of how they were formed, the bubbles were created a few million years ago.

Original research: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-019-1532-5

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Universal truth by John Norwood

Photograph stitches
Global perspective binding
Universal truth

By John Norwood

This sciku was inspired by the first images of a black hole captured by astronomers using the Event Horizon Telescope. The black hole is found at the centre of the galaxy Messier 87, 55 million light years from earth and the image required collaboration between over 200 astronomers.

The poem is a reflection on how an image created by collating observations from various locations all over the earth gives us insight on the physical nature of the universe. 

Image of black hole Messier 87 captured by the Event Horizon Telescope. Credit: EHT Collaboration.

You can read more about the image and find references to the 6 papers here: https://eventhorizontelescope.org/

John Norwood is a Mechanical Engineer working with Carbon, Inc. to revolutionize how things are made. His interests include old houses, yoga, baking, cryptography, and bluegrass music. You can follow him on Twitter under the handle @pryoga

Enjoyed this sciku? Check out some of John’s other work: The answer is none, God may be defined, With enough data, Rivers cut corners, and Squeamish ossifrage.

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Petite galaxy

Petite galaxy,

so young and oxygen-poor.

What can you tell us?

 

As the first galaxies formed they were chemically simple, composed of elements (hydrogen and helium) made during the first 3 minutes of the universe’s existence following the big bang. Oxygen and other complex elements formed later leading to the creation of oxygen-rich galaxies throughout the universe (like the Milky Way). In order to understand primordial galaxies astronomers need to observe oxygen-poor galaxies but finding such galaxies close enough for observation is extremely difficult.

Now a study by Izotov et al (2017) has found the most metal-poor dwarf star-forming galaxy known to date (J0811+4730), which has 9% less oxygen than any galaxy discovered so far. Observations of the young galaxy J0811+4730 could provide information about those galaxies formed during the early period of the universe as well as insights into how the early universe became re-ionized.

Original research: https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stx2478