Mythologies Of The Solar System

The planets of the solar system are named after gods and goddesses and are known by their Roman, not Greek names. Here I'll put the Greek equivalents in brackets afterwards. The satellites of these planets for the most part tend to be the Greek names associated in one form or another with the parent body or the god/goddess in question. Moons (and major asteroids) are identified with an asterisk.

Now you need to understand that at the time of the ancient Roman or Greek pantheon, only eight of the solar system's celestial bodies were known. There were the three major bodies, the Sun, Moon, and Planet Earth itself of course (thus, way back then, you'd expect a mythological relationship between these three bodies), and the minor five visible planets - Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn which were just points of light to the ancients, though it's not surprising the ancients matched celestial physics with the personalities of their gods and named them accordingly. Apart from our satellite, the Moon, no other moons were known to the ancients.

MYTHOLOGY AND THE INNER SOLAR SYSTEM

SOL (Helios) is obviously the god of the Sun. It surprises me that given the prominence and importance of this celestial object, our Sun, that the god of the Sun didn't take pride of place as head of the gods. Be that as it may, Sol, a first generation Titan, was born of the god Hyperion and the goddess Theia, brother to Luna (Selene) and Aurora or Dawn (Eos). His job is to bring light to men and gods alike. He rides in the sky in a fiery chariot pulled by his team of fast horses. Sol, from his vantage point, sees and hears everything (which proved to be the undoing of an illicit relationship between Mars (Ares) and Venus (Aphrodite). The god Apollo later fused as one with Sol's image though once they were two different deities. Sol's son, Phaethon, by the ocean nymph Clymene, once tried to ride his father's horse-drawn chariot, but lost control and had to be killed by Jupiter (Zeus) before the runaway Sun destroyed everything.

VULCAN (Hephaestus) was once upon a time actually sighted by astronomers and as the closest planet to the Sun, it would of course be HOT, and thusly was named after the deity of fire and blacksmithing. Alas, Vulcan turned out to be as mythical as the deity it was named after.

MERCURY (Hermes) when observed from Earth goes around the Sun quick-smart. So, it was natural to name that body after the fleetest of the gods, the messenger god who flies through the skies on a winged helmet and winged sandals, Mercury. No great mystery there.

VENUS (Aphrodite) was, because of its celestial purity of face and brightness, a female goddess, and of course THE female goddess was the goddess of love. Alas, Venus the planet turned out to be more appropriate for the Christian ruler of the underworld than the goddess of romance. Venus is Hell personified and thus the reality turned out to be vastly different than the expectation, but the ancients couldn't have known that back then. Venus (or Aphrodite) had an unusual birth, the offspring of Gaia, but fertilized by the blood/semen of Gaia's son and lover, Uranus, when Uranus was castrated by Saturn (Cronus).

*Neith was the name given to the lone phantom satellite of Venus. I say phantom because, like Vulcan, it was a case of 'now you see it, now you don't'. It vanished from the sight of astronomers across the world, but prior to that some saw something. That's water under the bridge now. The naming of the satellite Neith broke from tradition for Neith was the mysterious early Egyptian goddess of Sais. She was identified with war and hunting and the personification of the primordial waters of creation, though later on down the track she was associated with weaving, which is what Neith means. Wisdom was one of her strong points. She had no known male companion, so was known as a 'Virgin Mother Goddess'.

GAEA (Gaia) otherwise known as Terra or Earth was one of the original deities 'born' out of the original state of the universe - Chaos. Given the relative lack of bed partners around then, she mated with any and all available males, including her asexually created children, like Uranus.

*Luna (Selene) was born of the god Hyperion and the goddess Theia, sister to Sol (Helios) and Aurora or Dawn (Eos). Luna crosses the night sky on a chariot pulled by two white horses. As with Sol and Apollo, the Roman goddess Diana (Artemis) is often associated with, and has melded with Luna (as the crescent-shaped Moon) as has the goddess of the underworld, Hecate (as the New Moon). Luna remains as the Full Moon in the night sky.

MARS (Ares) son of Jupiter (Zeus) and Juno (Hera or Mrs. Zeus) was the god of war, though if mythology be believed, he was rather a wimp of a god, got his butt kicked on several occasions and was rather disliked up on Olympus.

*Deimos: Ares (the god of war) had an extramarital fling with the goddess of love, Aphrodite (who was married to the god of fire, Hephaestus) and from this union produced two sons, one being Deimos, meaning 'fear'.

*Phobos: That Ares and Aphrodite pairing also produced another son, Phobos, meaning 'terror'. Both Deimos and Phobos often joined daddy on the battlefield. However, apart from that, they play no significant role in mythology.

ASTEROIDS: There are only four really main or large asteroids among the tens of thousands that exist, Ceres, Pallas, Vesta and Juno.

*Ceres (Demeter) was the goddess of agriculture, the harvest, and the one who controlled the seasons. Zeus had a bedroom fling with her that resulted in Persephone, who Zeus then promised to his brother Hades as his wife. Alas, Zeus didn't inform either Persephone or Demeter about that decision, which had major repercussions down the track.

*Juno is Mrs. Jupiter, or in the Greek, the equivalent of Hera (Mrs. Zeus). In either case, Juno/Hera is the queen of all the gods and goddesses. She is perhaps noted most of all for her vindictiveness against some of the offspring produced by her husband's extramarital relationships, most notably, Hercules.

*Pallas is named after Pallas Athena, an alternative name for the Greek goddess Athena. In another version Pallas was the daughter of Triton, who acted as foster parent to Athena. A friendly fight between the two goddesses went sour and Pallas was killed.

*Vesta (Hestia) was the virgin goddess of the hearth and home or home fire, a real stay-at-home sort of deity and thus doesn't feature much in mythological adventures and doings. In the Roman version Vesta was represented by a shrine with an eternal flame guarded by the Vestal Virgins who, as a condition of their employment and of remaining alive, had better remain pure, or else. The god of war, Mars, raped one, and from that involuntary union, sprang the twins Remus and Romulus, the latter the founder of Rome.

MYTHOLOGY AND THE OUTER SOLAR SYSTEM

JUPITER (Zeus) was king of the mountain - Mount Olympus that is. He, after a series of 'wars in heaven' (with the Titans) and on earth (with the Giants) and finally with the daddy of all monsters, Typhon, claimed the right to be worshiped as King of the Gods, by all lesser gods and goddesses, demigods and demigoddesses, as well as all of the great unwashed - the mortals comprising humanity. Apart from being fast on the draw with his trademark thunderbolts, he's most noted for being even faster on the draw with his private parts. No Mounties or bounty hunters ever perused their quarry better or with more determination than our always horny Jupiter/Zeus, as we shall see immediately below (though with over five dozen satellites, only a few can be entered into in this short essay).

*Amalthea: Jupiter (Zeus) as a young infant, was spirited and hidden away in Crete by his mother, Rhea from his daddy, Saturn (Cronus) because daddy didn't want any sons of his eventually growing up and challenging him for supreme power. Saturn thus kept them out of his harms way by swallowing them. Rhea saved the last (Jupiter) by trickery. Anyway, young Jupiter was reared and looked after by local nymphs on Crete, especially by Amalthea. She's also known for having a horn, the 'Horn of Plenty' a cornucopia that provided limitless food and drink for whoever possessed it.

*Ananke, the goddess of inevitability and personification of destiny, necessity and fate was the mother of the Moirai by Zeus. The Moirai, also known as The Fates, were the trio that spun the thread of life of mortals from birth to death and thus controlled everyone's destiny. Even Zeus was powerless against their will.

*Callisto was the daughter of the King of Arcady, and she had the misfortune to have Zeus fall for her. Callisto was associated with the virgin goddess Artemis. When Zeus raped Callisto, she got in a family way (in mythology, every rape results in a pregnancy otherwise there's no point to the rape in the first place). This rape ultimately produces a son, Arcas. Artemis, being the virgin, was livid and banished Callisto from any further association with her. Hera (Mrs. Zeus) in the meantime assumed Callisto was a willing partner to her wayward hubby and in revenge turned Callisto into a bear. Years later, Arcas, out hunting, ran across that bear and not realizing that it was mom, shot her dead. Zeus then placed Callisto into the zodiac as Ursa Major, the Great Bear (or the Big Dipper); Arcas ultimately got his place in the heavens too as the Little Bear (or the Little Dipper).

*Carme was the mother by Zeus (who else?) of the virginal huntress Britomartis, a Minoan or Cretan goddess. Carme assisted in the harvest of the grain.

*Elara was the mother of the giant, Tityos. Tityos was fathered by you know who - randy Zeus. Tityos met a bad end, killed on the behest of Hera by Artemis and Apollo, and forever tortured in Tartarus (a subdivision of Hades) by a couple of vultures who liked liver for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Fortunately for the vultures, Tityos's liver kept regenerating so they never lacked for food.

*Europa was the daughter of a Phoenician king. Zeus got the hots for her and turned himself into a snow-white bull (gods can shape-shift; it's one of their major superpowers and that's no bull) and approached Europa in that form. Europa playfully climbs on the Zeus-as-bull's back. Zeus-the-bull then dives into the sea with Europa on his back and swims out to Crete. Once there he reverts back into his 'human' form and they made mad passionate love together and in the fullness of time Europa gave birth to triplets, one of which she named Minos. Zeus, ever thoughtful, also gave her some other gifts as well for her troubles. Europa ultimately married the king of Crete. Ultimately her son, Minos, assumed or claimed the throne. That's why Crete's ancient civilization is called the Minoan society. Europa is the only person having an entire continent named after them - Europe. As an aside, Europa is one of the few celestial bodies of interest to those on the lookout for potential sites where extraterrestrial life might exist.

*Ganymede: Abductions by the gods are by no means unknown or uncommon. In Greek mythology, a young handsome lad was Ganymede. He was abducted by Zeus, shape-shifted in the form of an eagle. Zeus favored the ladies, goddesses, demigoddesses, even mortal women, but for a catamite change of pace now and again... Ganymede was rewarded for his services by eternal youth and immortality, eventually placed in the sky as the constellation Aquarius. His daddy (Tros) was also compensated with a gift of fine horses.

*Himalia was a nymph who bore a trio of sons to Zeus or of course the Roman equivalent, Jupiter.

*Io was the daughter of the first king of Argos (what's it about kings and their daughters already - that plot device has reached its use by date). She of course caught the lustful eye of Zeus. Hera (Mrs. Zeus) got suspicious, so Zeus turned Io into a cow as a disguise. Hera (knowing full well what was afoot) of course assumed the cow was a gift for her from her hubby since he obviously had no use for a cow, so Zeus had no option but to agree that that of course was what he had intended all along. Hera then had the cow guarded by the multi-eyed giant Argus. Zeus, needing to get Io back, got Hermes (Mercury to the Romans) to kill Argus. Hera in revenge plagued Io-the-cow with a hornet. Finally a truce was called. Zeus promised to behave (pull the other one) and Io was reverted back to human form and reunited with her worried daddy - the king.

*Leda was of course the daughter of a king, and in turn married a king, in this case a king of Sparta. Zeus, of course, took a shine to Leda, and took the form of a swan and flew into Leda's arms seeking 'protection' from another predatory bird - that's his story and he's sticking to it. Anyway, somehow or other (Zeus may have turned her into a goose) this cuddle made Leda pregnant and from this pregnancy she gave birth - she laid an egg, obviously! The egg hatched and out popped beautiful Helen. Helen, later known as Helen of Troy, was the face that launched a thousand ships (and then some). This was Zeus's contribution to the Trojan War. In another version, the egg was the union between Zeus and the goddess of revenge, Nemesis. They gave the egg to Leda to hatch and raise the offspring up as her own. Leda had another child by Zeus - one of a pair of twins actually, Castor (by Zeus) and Pollux (by her husband) but known as the 'Boys of Zeus' or the 'Heavenly Twins' who eventually sailed with Jason as part of the Argonaut crew.

*Lysithea was the daughter of Oceanus (a Titan, product of Gaia and Uranus) and one of Zeus's many, many lovers.

*Pasiphae was the wife of King Minos of Crete, who, via a rather strange mating arrangement gave birth to the Minotaur. The rather remote connection to Jupiter is that Jupiter's brother, Neptune, was behind all of this. Neptune was offended because Minos didn't offer up as a sacrifice to Neptune a favorite bull, so in retaliation, Neptune saw to it that Minos's wife became infatuated with, and lusted after a bull, the offspring being that well known hybrid, the Minotaur.

*Thyone was once known as Semele, a lover of Zeus, who produced as offspring Dionysus, the god of wine and all around fun times. When Semele died as a result of Zeus revealing to her his true appearance - all the result of Hera's trickery - and went to Hades, Dionysus rescued her from the underworld and brought her to Olympus, made her into a goddess along with providing the change of name.

SATURN (Cronus) was one of those first generation Titans, offspring of Gaia and her son Uranus. He mated with Rhea, and produced from that union the original half-dozen gods and goddesses that would eventually become the Olympians. But the transition from Saturn's offspring to become the rulers of Mount Olympus was an epic that could just about out-epic anything Hollywood has ever done. Saturn is known for two things in particular - castrating his daddy and snacking on his kids - Yum, yum.

*Dione is a very obscure goddess who may have been a Titan or a Nereid or an Oceanid. Her name seems to be a feminine form of Zeus, and that brings in the alternative version of the origin of Aphrodite - a traditional birth via the union of randy Zeus and Dione (whoever she was). At least she's now immortalized as a satellite of Saturn.

*Enceladus was one of the Gigantes. The Gigantes were offspring of Gaia, fertilized by the blood/semen of her son and lover Uranus who was ultimately castrated by Cronus (a son of Gaia and Uranus back when he had his private parts intact). In the Gigantomachia (the battle between the Olympian gods and the giants), Athena deposited Enceladus under Mount Etna and the fire and brimstone breath of Enceladus accounts for that volcano's well, fire and brimstone. This is another abode thought as a possible site where alien life forms might one day be discovered.

*Hyperion was a Titan god, born of Gaia (Gaea) and her son, Uranus. He would become an early god of the Sun.

*Iapetus was another Titan god, born of Gaia (Gaea) and her son, Uranus. He would become the father of Prometheus, who ultimately is remembered for stealing fire from the gods and giving it to mankind.

*Janus was the Roman god of beginnings, doorways, entrances, gateways, etc. and is depicted with two faces, one each facing forward (to the future) and the other backward (to the past). January, the beginning, is named after him.

*Mimas, like Enceladus, was one of the Gigantes of Greek mythologies. Like the other giant sons of Gaia and Uranus, Mimas had serpents for legs and was born fully armored. Mimas was slain by Hephaestus during the war against the Olympians by a volley of molten iron.

*Phoebe was a Titan goddess, born of Gaia (Gaea) and her son, Uranus. Phoebe is identified as an early moon goddess. In another context, the goddess Artemis sometimes was associated with an alias of Phoebe. Finally, Helen of Troy had a half-sister Phoebe.

*Rhea was another Titan goddess, born of Gaia (Gaea) and her son, Uranus. She married Cronus (Saturn) and from that union was born what ultimately became the original half-dozen Olympian gods and goddesses. Cronus, out to eliminate potential future rivals, swallowed the first five of these kids, but Rhea tricked him when it came to the sixth and last, Zeus. She spirited Zeus away to Crete to be raised, and tricked Cronus into swallowing a stone disguised as the baby Zeus.

*Tethys was yet another Titan goddess, born of Gaia (Gaea) and her son, Uranus who would become the most ancient goddess of the sea.

*Titan is the largest moon of Saturn, a moon of interest to astrobiologists, and the only natural satellite to have an extensive atmosphere. In fact, Titan is larger than the planet Mercury and way lager than our own satellite, Luna. The mythology connection is that the original dozen Titans (some of which are named satellites of Saturn) were one of a set of offspring between Gaia and Uranus. Among the second generation of Titans are several household names like Atlas and Prometheus. They were overthrown in the Titanomachy (The War of the Titans) by Zeus and his fellow Olympians.

URANUS (alternative spelling Ouranos) was the original sky god, the son, via parthenogenesis, of Gaea (Gaia) who shacked up with mum to produce all manner of deities, including monstrous ones. He's known for having his privates sliced off by one of their Titan offspring, Saturn (Cronus). Saturn in turn got done like a dinner by one of his offspring, Jupiter (Zeus) but that's another story.

*Ariel, Miranda, Oberon, Titania and Umbriel, the five major moons of Uranus, were named or chosen from the names of characters from the works of Shakespeare and Alexander Pope and thus, unfortunately, have near bugger-all to do with traditional Greek and Roman mythology. Bummer, as that spoils some potentially good stories relating back to and involving the parent god, Uranus.

NEPTUNE (Poseidon) was the god of the sea, one of the original half-dozen Olympian gods and goddesses, brother to Zeus, Hades, Hera, Hestia and Demeter. All of Neptune's known 13 satellites are named for Green and Roman water deities or groups of minor water gods. The major two are Nereid and Triton.

*Nereid - the Nereids (plural) were nymphs of the sea, the 50 daughters of the Mediterranean Sea god Nereus. Among the famous of the Nereids - goddess all - were Thetis (mother of Achilles), Galatea and Amphitrite (who married Poseidon).

*Triton was another sea god, a son of Poseidon and the Nereid goddess Amphitrite, a nymph of the sea who became Queen of the Sea when she wed Poseidon. The typical depiction of Triton is that of a merman - human head and torso; one or two fishy (or maybe dolphin) tails. He too has a trident and a conch shell which when blown can calm the stormy waves. Like father, like son, Triton also had a bit of an eye for the ladies, especially beach-babes. Triton favors in a positive light for assisting Jason and the Argonauts in their saga.

PLUTO (Hades) was god of the underworld. In the Greek version, Hades (the god) administered Hades (the underworld), so the name of the ruler and the place ruled were one and the same. Within recent times, Pluto was officially downgraded from planet to dwarf planet status, which made a lot of traditionalists very unhappy.

*Charon was the son of Erebus (the god of underground darkness) and Nyx (goddess of night), who played the role of the ferryman who rowed the newly deceased across the River Styx to Hades, the underworld. As a reward, or a fare, he got a coin in payment - no coin, no crossing. The parentage and place of employment are ideal for a satellite so far out from the Sun.

*Hydra (discovered in 2005) was named after that famed beastie slain by Hercules as one of his dozen labors in Greco-Roman mythology. Hydra was one of numerous monstrous offspring from Typhon and Echidna, themselves monsters.

*Nix (a deliberate alternative spelling of Nyx) was a Greek goddess of night, one of the original deities conceived from the original state of the universe, Chaos. Nyx was the mother of Charon. Like Hydra, Nix the satellite was discovered in 2005.

ERIS is another dwarf planet, a trans-Neptunian object even larger that Pluto discovered in 2005. In fact it's the most massive of all dwarf 'planets' in our solar system, even though it's three times farther removed from the Sun than Pluto. Eris is a Greek goddess, the personification of strife and discord.

Developments in Astronomy Telescopes

Since the Dutch optician Hans Lippershey first peered through the one he invented in 1608, the telescope has been an important tool in studying "really far out" things. In the past 500 years, there have been great advances in astronomy telescopes, but most have come in the last two centuries.

The first practical telescope was a refracting device, using a long tube with lenses at each end. Galileo developed his own telescope, but his could only magnify objects by three diameters. This might be useful in spying on fellow villagers but was of only limited use in astronomical observations. His later refractor magnified objects by more than 30 times, which enabled him to identify the rings around the planet Saturn and some of the moons of Jupiter. The concept of astronomy telescopes had thus become reality. The 62-foot telescope at the Yerkes Observatory in Wisconsin was built in 1897, and remains today as the largest practical refractor in the world.

Hampering the capability of early telescopes was what is known as chromatic aberration, which is related to the failure of different color light rays to focus simultaneously. One way around this was to increase the focusing length, or focal length, of the telescope. Unfortunately the size of these devices made them impractical. Some exceptionally long refractors did not even use a tube. Instead, the outer lens would be placed atop a tree or some tall structure, using a swiveling ball joint. These too were impractical and difficult to use. A technical advancement that significantly reduced color aberration was the achromatic lens. This not only helped "clear the view" of astronomers but allowed for the development of telescopes that were smaller and more practical. The introduction of the micrometer for concise measuring also made possible the construction of precision telescopes.

The development of the reflecting telescope by British astronomer and mathematician Issac Newton was also an important step in the field of astronomy. A reflector uses a mirror system to "bounce" the light within the telescope, which allows the entire unit to be more powerful and more compact. The largest conventional reflector today is the Gran Telescopio Canarias, whose mirror has a diameter of approximately 34 feet. Several technical developments made possible larger and more precise reflecting telescopes. These included the bowl-shaped paraboloidal mirror and the process of silvering, which involves coating the glass components of a telescope with a reflective material.

Different types of telescopes developed over time have put to use newer technologies. The Ritchey-Chretien reflector used two mirrors with hyperbolic curving, which eliminated aberrations associated with the shape of glass components. The Off-Axis design and the Schietspiegler reflector were designed to reduce obstructions created by inside components and thus to prevent a telescope from "getting in the way of itself." Coude-focus telescopes employ additional optical features, making them compatible with spectrographic equipment.

Radio telescopes, which were developed after the Second World War, are not only less expensive than equally-powerful optical types but can "see" objects that give off little or no light. The Hubble Space Telescope was launched into low earth orbit in 1990, allowing astronomers too view the universe from above the atmospheric disturbances that can affect ground-based astronomy telescopes. Great advances have also been made in amateur telescopes, from improved optics to computerized operation. Would Hans Lippershey ever be surprised!

A Parallel Analogy Between Supernovae And Cosmology

Cosmology is the study of the evolution of our Universe as a whole - from birth to death, or maybe birth to death to rebirth. Stellar objects and events, like nova and supernovae are in the cosmic scheme of things almost insignificant in comparison. It's like comparing the life and times of an individual insect to the life and times of Planet Earth. Still, there might be a lot to be gleamed from comparing the life and death of our Universe to the life and death of the stars within that Universe.

A cyclic universe - one with birth, death, rebirth, death, rebirth, death, etc. is a far more philosophically satisfying universe than a one-off born, live, and fade-away universe, which is what our Universe appears to be. A cyclic universe is probably more pleasing because such a concept more closely mirrors nearly all local reality - the cyclic four seasons endlessly repeating; day-night-day-night; New Moon - Full Moon - New Moon - Full Moon; evaporation - rainfall - evaporation - rainfall; the carbon cycle; the nitrogen cycle; you name it, it recycles. Okay, maybe you don't. You maybe are like our Universe - born, live yet doomed to fade-away. But the broader human species continues to recycle - birth, death, birth, death, etc. The names and the faces change, but the human cycle continues. Actually all of your stuff will recycle too. Part of you today might be part of a cockroach 100 years down the track! That aside, the Big Question is how can you generate a cyclic universe, one which eventually goes from initial Big Bang expansion to one which contracts into a Big Crunch then rebounds again? How do you generate that from a Big Bang universe that's apparently doomed to keep expanding, ever expanding, forever, and ever, amen?

The standard model of cosmology suggests that our Universe had a one-off moment of creation (the Big Bang) and will over trillions of years surrender to entropy (the evolution of a state of order to ultimate disorder) and die an eventual "heat death" (where the temperature - heat energy, the ultimate end product of all other forms of energy conversion - is exactly uniform throughout). So we go from Once Upon A Time/In the Beginning through to Cosmic Evolution through to The End. But that's the narrow view. What if there were many universes, and they could interact? Then there might not be an overall Once Upon A Time/In the Beginning and ultimately The End. The parallel analogy with supernovae explains all.

THE STORY OF THE SUPERNOVAE: We've all heard of supernovae, and while quite rare, there has been one visible to the naked eye recently that occurred in the Large Magellanic Cloud (SN 1987A), a nearby companion mini-galaxy to our own visible from the Southern Hemisphere. It was first witnessed on Planet Earth after the light flash travelled thousands upon thousands of years, traversing intergalactic and interstellar space, to arrive locally on the 23rd of February 1987. It was the first visible naked eye supernovae event since 1604 - rare indeed.

Their cosmic story and cosmic significance is fairly straight forward. Stars form out of interstellar gas, dust and perhaps larger debris. This mix of stuff slowly but surely contracts, all under the mutual attraction of their individual gravities that eventually brings it all together in a lump sum - if massive enough an embryo star forms. The intense pressures heat up the interior, and if the embryo star is indeed massive enough, the heat and pressure will be enough to cause the gas, etc. to start to fuse, usually starting with hydrogen fusing to helium and releasing [solar] energy in that conversion - nuclear fusion is what powers the stars.

Now interstellar gas and dust clouds are not all uniform in size. So, some stars fire up with the bare minimum of stuff, other stars fire up with a lot of stuff in their core bellies, but not too much. These are sort-of like Goldilocks stars; stars like our Sun. A few stars formed from such a thick region of gas and dust that they were 'born' obese.

How massive newborn stars are will determine their lifespan and their fate. The relationship tends to be that the thinner you are at birth, the longer you'll live. Very skinny stars are very frugal with their fuel. These misers have stellar life-spans perhaps measured in roughly a trillion or so years. When their fuel finally runs out, they just slowly, ever so slowly, fade away into a white dwarf then finally as a dark and cold black dwarf cinder. Average stars, like our Sun, are less thrifty, but even so manage a lifespan of roughly ten billion years. Average stars will go through a more complex evolution, but ultimately they too will settle down to a long retirement, cooling, ever cooling when the fuel is exhausted. They too will go out not with a bang but with a whimper.

However, some stars are born just plain fat! Some stars can also put on weight after-the-fact by stealing mass from a nearby companion star via their stronger gravity and close proximity. However the star gets fat, fat in a stellar sense (lots and lots of mass), the more massive a star is, the greater the temperatures and pressures in that star's core, and the faster nuclear fusion reactions go. Really massive stars live life in the fast lane; they live fast; they die young. And they don't go out with a whimper, but with a bang - sometimes endlessly hiccuping or burping or vomiting - novas; sometimes imploding due to massive gravity when their core fuel gets close to empty (leaving a bit of a void) which causes a massive rebound and a super-ultra-violent explosion called a supernovae. That really does spew their stellar guts back into the interstellar winds. While there are several different types of supernovae that have ultimately different origins, that's of no concern in this context. The important bit is that stuff gets spewed back into space and eventually recycled.

Exploding stars, the novae but especially the supernovae return not only gas and dust and debris back to the interstellar medium, but enriched gas, dust and debris since the enormous temperatures and pressures cook up the heavier elements (elements more complex than helium), elements that are essential for life to ultimately grace the cosmos with its presence.

Gas and dust from one star's 'burp' intersect with gas and dust from another star's 'hick-up' and maybe intermingle with the 'spewing vomit' from a supernovae, all ultimately contracting again under mutual gravity to form a second, even third generation star and stellar planetary system. Our Sun is at least a third generation star and is made up of former spewed stuff, some of which is now heavier than just hydrogen and helium; ditto the Sun's family of planets, including Planet Earth. If it weren't for supernovae, we wouldn't be here. The late astronomer, Carl Sagan, said it best when he stated that we are indeed the end product of "star-stuff".

So the basic cosmic cycle is stars form from interstellar gas and dust; stars live; some stars spew their guts of gas and dust back out into interstellar space, providing the raw materials for the next generation of stars. You get creation - destruction - creation - destruction, over and over again, albeit at different times in different places.

THE PARALLEL COSMOLOGY ANALOGY: So what the hell does the above have to do with cosmology? There's lots of stars; only one Universe - or is that really the case?

One set of assumptions has to be made from the get-go. I postulate that the cosmos, all that is and ever will be, is infinite in both space and in time. This assumption is more philosophical than scientific. If you ever postulate a finite cosmos, a cosmos with a boundary, a fixed volume, you must, of necessity, deal with that maverick who asks, "Well, what exists beyond that boundary?" If you postulate a beginning and/or an end, that same maverick will annoy you with, "Well, what happened before that or after that?" It's just easier to wrap your head around a cosmos that is infinite; a cosmos that had no beginning and will have no end. Unfortunate, the standard model of cosmology postulates a beginning, and a fade-away ending and a finite amount of stuff and space to stuff it into.

We all know the standard scientific spiel to the creation of our Universe - no, not the Biblical Book of Genesis, but the Big Bang event. Well, already we have a parallel analogy - supernovae are mini big bang events.

Now the Big Bang and other associated real time events like an additional oomph of an in the beginning "inflation" have resulted in our Universe expanding, ever expanding. There's lots of observational evidence for the Big Bang and the expansion. So, lots of stuff has been vomited out into the cosmos from a unique point in time - 13.7 billion years ago. But if there was a finite Big Bang, then there must also have been a finite amount of space to stuff that vomit into. That violates my philosophical ideals of not only no boundary in time, but no bounds in space for our Universe to strut its stuff in.

Anyway, we have expansion of stuff spreading out through space. Well, that's a parallel analogy with the spewing out of gas and dust via stars going nova and supernovae. Now commonsense might suggest that the original oomph of the Big Bang would eventually run out of puff as the one-way attraction of gravity would slow the expansion down, and down, and down and eventually cause the expansion to come to a grinding halt - then reverse, as gravity would cause everything to contract once again back into the configuration from which the Big Bang arose from. In other words, the expected fate of our Universe was to be born from a Big Bang, live and evolve, and die in a Big Crunch.

Alas, life isn't that simple - Mother Nature is a baseball pitcher with a wicked curveball or knuckleball. Mother Nature's a real Hall-of-Fame bitch. A bunch of astronomical party-poopers discovered that the expansion of the Universe isn't slowing down; it bloody well accelerating! Thus, no Big Crunch is on the horizon in the far future, only a "Heat Death" as entropy ends up ruling the roost. So runs the standard spiel. So how are you going to eventually generate a second or third or one-hundredth generation universe out of that mess? But that's the limited view. Let's climb the cosmic mountain for the grander picture.

What comes now to the rescue is that there is more than one Big Bang (maxi nova or supernovae) universe; more than one expansion event, because, there's more than one universe, more than just our Universe, within that infinite (in space and time) cosmos referred to above.

And so, while from our limited point of view there is our Universe, and thus we assume the one-and-only-Universe, in fact there is more - much, much more. If you have a lot of universes in the infinite cosmos, all of which started off with a supernovae-like Big Bang, then, sooner or later, the spew of one (or more) will intersect with the spew of another (or more).

Thus, a lot of expanding regions of individual universes will intersect, eventually. That intersect region will, under combined gravities, start to slow things down. That region will slowly, but surely, start to contract. That contraction will eventually collapse into a Big Crunch. It seems something cyclic has happened. Lots of Big Bangs have generated a Big Crunch - actually a lot of Big Crunches when you look at the total 3-D picture. Big Bang A's expansion might intersect with Big Bang expansions B, C, and D in one direction, say left. Big Bang A's expansion might intersect with Big Bang expansions E, F and G in the opposite direction. Big Bang A's expansion might intersect with Big Bang expansions H, I, J and K in the up direction; Big Bang A's expansion might intersect with the L, and M Big Bangs in the downward direction, and so on and so forth. The Big Crunches (resulting in the Mother of all Black Holes) will be symmetrical, turning inside out into newly vomiting Big Bangs, or White Holes.

And so the endlessly cycling of stellar nova/supernova (expansion) to intersecting clouds of interstellar gas/dust (contractions) thus forming new stellar objects, some of which will in turn vomit up their quota of interstellar gas/dust has a parallel though many orders of magnitude on up the line. Endlessly cycling Big Bang expansions intersect to form high gravity regions which contract (in Big Crunches) to form new regions where conditions are ripe for a new Big Bang event. And so we have an overall cyclic cosmos or Multiverse (because there is more than one universe). There's not just one expanding universe slowing down and contracting to ultimate reform that one expanding universe again, but a whole potpourri of universes that are all just expanding, intersecting and contracting, comings and goings at different times and places - night and day; Full Moon to New Moon; evaporation to rainfall; etc.

In fact, if you think about it, the idea that there are many expanding and contracting universes is but the next logical step in what was already proven to be a natural progression. Once upon a time Terra Firma (Earth) was the centre of the Universe. Now we know better. Then the Sun and solar system were elevated to that centre. Now we know better because there are lots of suns and planets that have eliminated our uniqueness. Once upon a time our galaxy was considered to be the be-all-and-end-all of the Universe. Today we know better. There are billions and billions of other galaxies out there and our galaxy occupies no special place in space or time and has no special appearance. So, I suggest that our Universe is now not the centre of the universe (or cosmos to avoid confusion). We have a Multiverse! And we have a cyclic Multiverse that should satisfy that philosophical idealistic need referred to at the start.

Now it could already be the case that part of our expanding Universe has recently (even as in multi-millions of years ago) intersected part of another expanding universe. However, we wouldn't be aware of that because it's going to take billions of years for the visuals and the gravitational effects to reach us from such vast distances.

There is at least one interesting consequence inherent in this cyclic Multiverse. Even if there is only a finite amount of mass and energy in this infinite volume (and that doesn't have to be the case since you can fit an infinite amount of mass and energy into an infinite volume), that finite mass and energy has been recycled an infinite number of times in the unending past and will be recycled an infinite number of times in the unending future. The upshot of that is that anything and everything that can happen, everything that is not forbidden by the laws, principles and relationships inherent in nature, has happened an infinite number of times and will happen again an infinite number of times. Translated, you have and will exist again, and again, and again in all possible permutations. Although the 'you' that is reading this in the 'now' will fade away (that sounds nicer than kicking-the-bucket), take comfort in that another 'you', somewhere and somewhen else, will carry on carrying on the 'you' tradition.

JOHN'S COSMOLOGY - SUPERNOVAE ANALOGY IN SUMMARY FORM

1) Contraction of a universe - 1) Contraction of interstellar gas/dust

2) Big Crunch (Black Hole) - 2) Massive star forms

3) Transition to - 3) Stellar life span

4) Big Bang (White Hole) - 4) Supernovae

5) Expanding Universe - 5) Expulsion of gas/dust

6) Intersection with another expanding universe - 6) Interaction with other gas/dust

7) Gravity rules - 7) Gravity rules

8) Contraction of new universe - 8) Contraction of interstellar gas/dust

POINT AND COUNTERPOINT: Now your standard run-of-the-mill, everyday professor of cosmology at your local leading university will tell you if you show her this scenario that it is all total nonsense and I should be consigned to the pseudoscientific rubbish bin. The Big Bang event was a one-off; it was unique; a one-of-a-kind; a fluke; just one of those interesting things that happen for no apparent reason at all. The Big Bang event created time and space, therefore time and space cannot be infinite.

But - and you'll read that non-observation (since there was no one around including any lady cosmologists to observe at the Big Bang's ground zero) in any standard book on the subject - it's nonsense, a scientific fabrication if you really stop and think about it. You cannot create something, anything, without having the space already available to create it into. That applies to the creation of our Universe as much as it applies to creating widgets in a factory! To claim otherwise is to suggest all of ultimate creation was kick-started in no space at all! How absurd is that! Consider the reverse: how can you cram everything into nothing?

Now if the Big Bang event did not, could not, create space way back then, then space is not undergoing continuous creation today contrary to the standard spiel. Translated, space is not expanding into some non-space region of non-existence. Expanding space either means that space is getting thinner and thinner (less dense) like an expanding balloon skin stretching (and that's nonsense - how can space decrease in density?), or new space is being created out of nothing to fill the void as space expands. You can't create something out of pure nothing; not then (at the Big Bang); not now. That's a violation of all the basic conservation laws that are the bedrock of physics.
So, the obvious alternative is that what's expanding is the stuff vomited out by the Big Bang event into pre-existing space and the vomit just keeps thinning out as it expands throughout an ever wider volume of that pre-existing space. Now fortunately for me, and unfortunately for those cosmology professors, there's no actual observational test or experiment that can be done to distinguish between the two possibilities and settle the matter. If there were such observational evidence that proved that space itself was expanding (and thus being continuously created even as I type this) that evidence would be given in the textbooks. But it's not there. All you get is just the standard scenario: "the Big Bang created space; space is expanding and therefore space is still being created today". The unwritten sentence is "just take my word for it" because I can't back it up with any evidence, far less proof. The only evidence is that something is expanding. That something could equally be Big Bang stuff spewing out into pre-existing space like an exploding firecracker will spew its contents outward bound and ever expanding.

It's the unanswered question that remains in fact unasked in the standard textbooks - what exactly is our Universe's expanding space expanding into? What is our expanding space shoving out of the way as it expands, ever expands? It can't be pre-existing space according to the standard model since the Big Bang event created all of space; the entirety of space in the beginning 13.7 billion years ago. Perhaps space is pushing into a theoretical higher dimension (whatever that really means), but that would be an ad hoc pull of the rabbit out of the proverbial hat where nobody advocating that could provide any evidence that either the rabbit or the hat exists at all. Besides, all those extra dimensions predicted by the purely mathematical and hypothetical string theory (if string theory is to work) are compactified; curled up into super-ultra microscopic foetal positions; they are tiny. They aren't the sort of higher dimension you can expand a universe of space into. So it's back to the drawing board for our standard lady (and gentlemen) cosmologists.

The other bit, the creation of time, is equally absurd. The Big Bang was an event. It was an effect. If causality has any meaning at all, and it's one of the foundations upon which all of science rests on, then an effect has a cause. Causes must precede effects when cause and effect are intimately related (there are of course lots of causes and lots of effects that have no connection). Therefore, whatever caused the Big Bang event (or effect), must of necessity have happened before (preceded) the Big Bang event. Therefore, there must have been an already existing time prior to the Big Bang event and therefore the Big Bang event did not, could not, create time. Since there was a before the Big Bang, since cause always precedes effect, then again time could not have been created - time has always been, is, and always will be.

Fortunately for me, and unfortunately for those professors of cosmology ramming down the standard 'creation of time and space' scenario to their students, all equations (that which usually substitutes for lack of ways and means to do actual observations) that try to describe the Big Bang event; ground zero when space allegedly equals zero and time allegedly also equals zero, totally break down. So the standard 'create time and space' model is pure extrapolation (running the film backwards from today's data) and ultimately a best guess. So while I've no doubt the Big Bang scenario is correct in the broad-brush generalities, there is a lot of observational evidence that something really big happened 13.7 billion years ago that kick-started our Universe off on its evolutional path, when it comes to some of the nitty-gritty details, like that 'create time and space' detail, well I just think that is plain wrong - pure and simple.

So why is that 'Big Bang created time and space' the only accepted scenario? It is beyond me, except it probably has a lot to do, not with science, but the sociology and the office politics of science - peer pressure. Science, like the church and other formal institutions does not approve of mavericks that go against the grain. So if you want a Ph D., a job, research funding, a career with promotions, publications, etc. you don't rock the boat. Science, and that includes cosmology, for all its self-correcting ways and means and methods and ideals is still, ultimately, a human endeavour. As such, you tow the party line; go with the flow; parrot to your students what your professors parroted to you.

Now there are a few bold cosmologists who do acknowledge that the Big Bang event still has some kinks to be ironed out and that there was a "before the Big Bang". That's not to say they would endorse my scenario. They probably wouldn't in a pink fit!