You’ve probably seen an image of a nebula, even if you weren’t aware that it was a nebula. If you’ve ever had a device with a space-related default background, it was probably a nebula. It might have looked vaguely like the inside of a lava lamp, or cotton candy covered in glitter.
Nebulas (or nebulae if Latin pluralization matters to you) are really just gas, but they’re pretty darn fascinating. As I understand it, they occur in one of two situations.
First, they can be found in regions of space where stars are forming. Hydrogen and helium – the two elements that make up most of the stuff that was flung everywhere when that big bang happened – are just out there floating around. And like any gas, they tend to clump up into clouds. Just like when clouds form here on earth, these clouds become visible once they’re dense enough. Wait around until they’re denser still and again, just like the clouds we know and love on earth, they’ll precipitate something. Except instead of squeezing out rain, these clouds will squeeze out a star or two.
The other situation in which nebulas can form is at the other end of a star’s life cycle. When a smaller star expands, or when a bigger one explodes, all that material is pushed out again into less dense clouds, and just like that, you’ve got a nebula again.
Depending on your mood, this stellar circle of life can leave you in awe or it can make you question the point of it all.
At this moment, it leaves me in awe.
What makes this a beautiful song:
1. The first notes of the main melody in the piano remind me of the opening notes of the chorus in Soundgarden’s “Black Hole Sun,” and that genre-crossing, space-themed consistency makes me very happy.
2. The piano is quite muted, but other elements – the snare rim hit in the percussion stands out – have a fair bit of reverb on them, making them echo out into space.
3. There isn’t really any chorus or verse or bridge or development; the song starts, it proceeds, it ends. A very simple life cycle that doesn’t particularly care what you think of it.
Recommended listening activity:
Stargazing.