Event: The Birth of the Sun
Date: ~4.6 billion years ago

“In birth, we witness the eternal dance of creation, the miracle of life unfolding before our eyes.”
— Thich Nhat Hanh

Dear Human,

It began with a cloud.

A vast molecular nebula—cold, dark, and laced with the remains of long-dead stars—drifted silently in the spiral arm of a galaxy. These nebulae are stellar nurseries, wombs of gas and dust where the next generation of stars waits to be born. Our Sun’s story begins in one such place, rich in hydrogen, helium, and the heavier elements seeded by supernovae.

For millions of years, the cloud remained quiet. But deep within, something shifted. A shockwave—likely from a nearby supernova—rippled through the nebula, disturbing its balance. Local regions of higher density began to collapse under their own gravity. As they fell inward, conservation of angular momentum caused the cloud to spin faster, and a dense knot began to form at the center.

As gravity compressed the core, temperatures and pressures rose. At around ten million degrees Celsius, hydrogen atoms began to fuse into helium. This fusion released an immense outpouring of energy, countering the force of collapse. The Sun had ignited.

Surrounding this newborn star was a flattened disk of leftover material—still spinning, still warm, still rich in possibility. This protoplanetary disk was made of gas and dust, much of it composed of elements forged in ancient stars. Some of the gas was pulled toward the Sun, feeding its growth. But much of it remained in orbit, caught in the Sun’s gravitational embrace.

Within this disk, dust grains collided and stuck together, forming pebbles, then rocks, then planetesimals. Over millions of years, these small bodies grew through accretion, sweeping up material and shaping the structure of the solar system.

The remnants of the cloud—now transformed—became planets, moons, comets, and asteroids. Even today, they speak of their origin. Some carry the fingerprints of the nebula’s chemistry; others still orbit in the Kuiper Belt or Oort Cloud, far from the warmth of the star they orbit.

At the center of it all burned a star. Not just a source of heat and light, but the child of a long lineage. Born from dust, ignited by collapse, surrounded by the whispers of its own making.

You orbit not just a light, but a story. A memory of growth, of pressure, and of rebirth.

Pathfinder

Nebular hypothesis – Wikipedia