Out in the depths of the cosmos lives PSR J0737-3039A/B, a spectacular double pulsar star system located about 3,750 light years from Earth. You read that right: a double pulsar star system. As surreal as it sounds, the distance from our planet is even more staggering. 3,750 light years is 22.05 quadrillion miles. The fact that humans can even know of its very existence is mind breaking.
A pulsar is the remnant of a supernova explosion. Spinning hundreds of times per second, it emits colossal beams of radiation from its poles. The system I’m referring to here has two of them. Orbiting. Each other.
Like two apprehensive lovers, they are locked in gravitational rhythm, pulsing with longing, yet never touching. These cosmic lovers orbit each other at the astonishing rate of once every 2.45 hours. Their proximity is intimate, their timing precise, yet they are kept apart by time. Even at this orbital speed, it will take them 85 million years to collide. Eighty-five. Million.
The pulsars are about 500,000 miles away from each other, yet close the distance by only 7 millimeters per day. This is a stunning example of the simultaneous grandiosity and intimacy of the Universe. When they finally do collide, they will not embrace. It will be a collision so intense that it will shatter their very existence, like the broken psyches of a divorced couple.
I feel you – You are so close • Your vibration is mine – My vibration is yours • You pull me towards you – But I’m still so far away • Will it hurt when I find you • Will I still be the same • Why does it take so long • I remember my death • How am I here now • My emotion beams out of me • I cannot stop it
I imagine the pulsars ache with epic longing. That time feels infinite to them. They have been dancing for nearly 50 million years; the intermission still millions of years away. The crescendo of their collision will illuminate the heavens. After this final act, humans on Earth wouldn’t see the curtain drop for another 3,750 years, a span of dozens of generations. Dozens. Of generations.
We cannot know what will become of these cosmic lovers.
Will they become one, a single being, a black hole of infinite energy?
Perhaps they’ll shatter instantaneously, littering galaxies with gigatons of precious metals?
They could even morph into galaxy sized gravitational waves and change the very architecture of spacetime itself.
Whatever the end may be, I’m certain it will be majestic.
Jay Owens 