Galaxy 2 is a synthesis of many celestial bodies revealing the beauty of our universe. In January 2002, a faint star on the outer edges of the Milky Way flared to 600,000 times the luminosity of the Sun. By April the flare had subsided but its echoes were still reaching Earth years later. This remarkable time lapse bloom is conjured from light bounced back from ever wider shells of debris ejected by V838 Monocerotis during a previous outburst. In the painting this would be the center.
On the left side of the painting is an Eagle Nebula- hewn from a dense cloud of hydrogen by a torrent of plasma, this iconic stagalamite is replete with compact pockets of gas dubbed Evaporating Gas Globules or EGGs. Within many EGGs, protostars are quickening in a race against time as their sustaining gas yolk is boiled away by photoevaporation.
On the bottom right is the Sun with the energy of up to a billion megatons of TNT, solar flares can hurl clouds of plasma into space a velocities approaching the speed of light and cover a region the size of many Earths. This eruption measured over 100,000 kilometers (62,000 miles) in height. Solar flares are believed to result from the violent release of the magnetic energy from the area surrounding sunspots.
On the right side of the painting is Pleiades- the ancient Greeks recognized Pleiades, as the children of Atlas. Their blue veil is a passing dust cloud!
All this information is excerpted from Universe: A Journey from Earth to the Edge of the Cosmos by Nicolas Cheetham.
