Blurry, cont'd

Okay, I'm back. Here's a shot of Neptune that makes me think of that existential dread which sort of hit me with that other picture (which I can't find online as of yet).

It's dark and enigmatic. Nothing else can be seen around it. Lord knows what that white splotch is; looks like it could be near the Great Dark Spot (Neptune has one of those endless storms on its surface, too, like Jupiter -- I read that because there are no landmasses on those planets, the storms never die out, or at least persist for a very, very long time).

Anyhow, it's out there, and we can glimpse at it with our telescopes and satellites, but it's ineffable and most definitely hostile to human life. It's like God's unblinking eyeball staring at us. One can just as easily look at it and find beauty -- the blue is beautiful; it's a result of all of the methane on Neptune. It's also a reality that has nothing to do with us, except inasmuch as we are aware of its existence. When our Sun finally dies and heat pasteurizes the Earth, Neptune will go along the way it has, heedless and lifeless, a beautiful sterility. But with one less moon -- apparently Triton's orbit is decaying, and it will crash into Neptune. Of course, we'll surely be extinct by then, but I felt bad for poor little Triton. This is from the wikipedia link for Triton...

Due to its retrograde motion, the already-close Tritonian orbit is slowly decaying further from tidal interactions and it is predicted that between 1.4 and 3.6 billion years from now, Triton will pass within its Roche limit [6]. The most likely outcome will be collision with Neptune's atmosphere, although ring formation due to tidal disruption is also possible.

So, maybe Neptune will get another ring as Triton gets pulverized by Neptune's gravity. Whatever the eventual outcome, it's doomed. They say there is a chance for primitive life on Triton, beneath the surface, where liquid water exists. But it'll likely never have a chance to move beyond that point.

Don't mind my brain staggers, here. There's an aribtrariness to physics that is frightening -- if X occurs, Y will happen. It makes it understandable why people built theological and philosophical bubbles around themselves for protection. The reality, even the blurry, fuzzy, unknowable stuff (which is just about everything) is too frightening to gaze at for long.

Do you remember when the comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 blasted into Jupiter? I remember having the same kind of dread when I saw that, given our own planet's history with asteroid and comet impacts. If that had been the Earth, it would have been a slate-wiper. That didn't get so much commentary at the time (or since), probably because it was so obviously the case, and so discomforting.

Anyway, there's an aesthetics of dread I feel, and I find it in the blurry things. The monster is scariest when you know it's there, but can't quite see it, or can't see it clearly.