Sara Seager - The Smallest Lights in the Universe

This is a work of nonfiction. To the best of my memory, everything that follows is true. Whenever possible, facts have been verified through secondary sources. A small number of names have been changed to protect the identities of private individuals.

Not every planet has a star. Some arent part of a solar system. They are alone. We call them rogue planets.

Because rogue planets arent the subjects of stars, they arent anchored in space. They dont orbit. Rogue planets wander, drifting in the current of an endless ocean. They have neither the light nor the heat that stars provide. We know of one rogue planet, PSO J318.5-22right now, its up there, its out therelurching across the galaxy like a rudderless ship, wrapped in perpetual darkness. Its surface is swept by constant storms. It likely rains on PSO J318.5-22, but it wouldnt rain water there. Its black skies would more likely unleash bands of molten iron.

It can be hard to picture, a planet where it rains liquid metal in the dark, but rogue planets arent science fiction. We havent imagined them or dreamed them. Astrophysicists like me have found them. They are real places on our celestial maps. There might be thousands of billions of more conventional exoplanetsplanets that orbit stars other than the sunin the Milky Way alone, circling our galaxys hundreds of billions of stars. But amid that nearly infinite, perfect order, in the emptiness between countless pushes and pulls, there are also the lost ones: rogue planets. PSO J318.5-22 is as real as Earth.

There were days when I woke up and couldnt see much difference between there and here.

One morning it was only the distant laughter of my boys that persuaded me to push back the covers. Max was eight years old. Alex was six. They were looking out the window, their faces lit with kid joy. It was a blue-sky weekend in January, and a thin white blanket of snow had fallen overnight. Finally, a bright spot. We could go sledding, one of our familys favorite pastimes. After a quick breakfast, Max and Alex began putting on their snowsuits. With their plastic sleds stuffed into the car, we made the short drive to the top of Nashawtuc Hill.

The hill is a popular gathering spot in Concord, Massachusetts. Its steep and fast enough to thrill even grown-ups. It can get busy, but not that morning. There wasnt really enough snow to sled, and tall grass and weeds poked out of what snow was there. I tried to pretend for the sake of the boys that sledding would still be fun. I didnt believe it myself. Id spent my entire life searching for lights in the dark; now I could see only the blackness that surrounded them. But we had gone to the trouble of getting to the top of the hill. The boys might as well try to get to the bottom.

There were two other women standing at the top, mothers talking and laughing with each other while their kids played. They were beautiful, their faces put together enough to make me resentful. I looked at them coldly. I thought: Who gets up on a Sunday morning and thinks to do their makeup like that? They looked like a picture from a brochure for happiness.

Max was big enough to get all the way down the hill. Even if he hit the weeds, he had enough mass and speed to pass over and through them. Physics werent so much on Alexs side. He kept getting stuck. He tried going down a few times but eventually gave up. Seeing his brother hurtle to the bottom was too much for him to take. Alex sat there, pouting, right in the middle of the hill. He wasnt crying. He just spread himself across the hill and refused to move. If he wasnt going to have any fun, nobody was.

One of the women called over and asked if I could shift him. He was in the way, and she was afraid he was going to get hurt. I understood why he needed to be moved. I was also spent, my best plans undone. I wasnt in the mood to take orders from someone like her, from someone so pretty. I wasnt in the mood to take orders from anybody. I glared at her and shook my head.

She asked again.

No, I said. He has a problem.

She smiled and maybe even laughed a little. Oh, okay, she said. I mean, its just that

I ignored her.

Its just that the hill

HE HAS A PROBLEM. MY HUSBAND DIED.

When youre in the ugly throes of grief, most people are repulsed by you. Nobody knows what to say or how to behave in your presence. Everybodys scared of what you represent, and in a way, I suppose, you learn to want them to be. The distance that people keep is a sign of respect: Your grief warrants a wide berth. You come to crave the ability to influence the movements of others, your sorrow a superpower, your sadness your most extraordinary trait. You come to crave the space.

I thought the woman on the hill would be shocked. I thought she would recoil. Instead, she did the strangest thing. She smiled, and then her eyes brightened. She became an oven, radiating warmth.

Mine, too, she said.

I was stunned. I think I asked her how long she had been a widow. Five years, she said. It had been only six months for me. Shes forgotten what its like, I thought. How dare she laugh at me.

I had an overwhelming urge to run, to return to my bed, lashed by my storms of molten iron, but Max was still having fun on the hill. Its moments like those, when youre torn in two, that you realize how alone you are. You need to find solutions to unsolvable problems. I decided that Id take the boys home, and wed get Alex the iPad. Then wed come back. Alex could sit in the car and play, and Max could still sled. Hopefully the other widow would be gone by the time we got back.

She was still there when we returned. Meeting beautiful new people wasnt easy for me in the best of circumstances, and these were far from ideal. I had no idea what to do next. I tried to stand far away from her, to become even more repellent than I already felt. It didnt work. She started walking toward me. I was mortified. Could she not read the sign that was around my neck? Did she not know to leave me alone? But this time she approached me a little differently. She was measured in her movements, as though she didnt want to scare me away. She was still smiling, just not as widely.