The Sun is Alive

Author : Connor Harbison

“What did you just say?”

“You heard me. The sun, it’s…alive.”

“Impossible.”

“No, no, hear me out. According to my research, the sun, it’s a living, breathing thing. Being. Not life as we know it, per say, but still, life. In another sense.”

“I don’t follow.”

“Think of it this way. A mosquito lands on your arm. It can’t comprehend you, I mean really you, like your name or your job or any of that. All the mosquito knows is that you are a food source. That’s sort of like how we see the sun.”

“So how do we get in contact with it? The sun. Is it an it? Does the sun have a gender?”

“I don’t think so. As far as we know stars are created through gravity, so their reproduction would be radically different from anything we’d be familiar with. And as for contacting Sol, I’m not sure that we can. No more than a fly can have a conversation with a human. The differences in time scale are too vast, to begin with.”

“What do you mean by time scale?”

“Sol experiences time differently than we do. Again, think of the insect analogy. A mayfly has a lifespan of one day, and to that mayfly the day is everything. But to us, a day is just a passing…well, day. It’s relatively brief. I mean, we live for thirty thousand days, an eternity to a mayfly. Likewise, Sol is four and a half billion years old. The human mind can’t even comprehend that number, but to Sol it’s barely half a lifetime. Time scales, my friend.”

“You have no idea what this means, for us, for humanity. The search for life out there is over, and the answer has been literally staring us in the face forever.”

“For starters it means the Egyptians were right, in a sense. Their god Ra was a lot more accurate, scientifically speaking, than any Judeo-Christian God. Not that Sol is particularly large. There are stars out there that dwarf Sol. But our star has gathered a number of planets and other objects, more than is standard for a star of Sol’s mass, if our extrasolar astronomy is to be believed.”

“What do you mean, gathered?”

“Compared to Sol, even Jupiter is tiny. We humans probably don’t register. I doubt Sol is even aware there is life on Earth, what with our short existence. No, Sol seems to have steered itself or cast its gravity far and wide to scoop up all sorts of interstellar detritus.”

“So what you’re saying is…”

“Not only is the sun alive, but Sol has a personality. It seems our star is a hoarder.”