A new center . . .

Gravity

The world had a new center
And that center was you
As I walked the night away
Peering down into the glittering night sky
I felt I was floating
And all that kept me tethered
From falling into that great abyss
Was the gravity of my love for you. 

-emily sha

Working Silhouettes

Studio shot of working silhouettes

Hand in the universe

At the other end of Caleb Scharf's book on gravity at it's most intense he sums up the relevance of some of the largest and most powerful structures in the universe to our own existence.  He recaps his descriptions of how black holes are not just the simple uncomplicated dents in space time you and I thought they were, but are the most efficient means the universe has of converting matter to energy, working like electrical batteries to power and shape galaxies and create the conditions for our own existence:

Take a look at your hand.  It contains atoms of carbon, oxygen, and nitrogen that were forged a million miles below the surface of another star billions of years ago.  Your hand also contains hydrogen that was present at the very beginning of the universe.  All these elements have felt the presence of black holes.  Right now, a tiny fraction of the vast electromagnetic sea of photons racing through the universe is reaching down through our own atmosphere, hitting the ancient atoms of your flesh.  Some of these photons originate in the fearsome spinning of matter around black homes, or from the jets of particles rushing at near light speed out into the cosmos.  We are awash in their radiation, but it is nothing new to the atoms in your hand.  As the cosmic dark ages lifted 13 billion years ago, some of the primordial hydrogen in your body was likely buffeted and tickled by the radiation of feeding black holes.  Billions of years later, the stars that built your heavy elements existed because of the history of gravity and energy in one zone of what was becoming the Milky Way galaxy.