Arul pressed his nose against the thick glass of the observation dome. The blue marble of Earth hung behind them, luminous and silent. Stars winked into view across the blackness, a sea of light and time. The boy had never seen anything like it. Everything seemed to feel quiet, still, and unmoved around them.
Vinodh floated beside him, steady and calm in his worn, saffron-colored thermal suit. He was in his sixties, with gentle eyes that seemed to have absorbed centuries. The low hum of the spacecraft enveloped them like a lullaby.
"Beautiful, isn't it?" Vinodh said, voice soft over the comm.
Arul nodded. "It’s like… everything and nothing at the same time."
Vinodh smiled. "That's a very good description. Most people say it's just ‘space.’ But it’s much more than that. Want to take a tour?"
Arul turned to him, eyes wide. "A tour?"
"Not of the ship. Of that." Vinodh gestured toward the infinite black, sprinkled with stars. “Let me show you where you’ve come from, and where you are.”
The dome darkened slightly, and holograms bloomed around them. A glowing orange sphere rotated above Vinodh’s palm.
"This is our Sun," he began. "A G-type main-sequence star, or a yellow dwarf. Not too big, not too small. But it holds our entire solar system together, like Amma holding a family close."
Arul reached out to touch the hologram, which flickered with heat maps and solar flares. "How old is it?"
"About 4.6 billion years. Halfway through its life. One day, it will become a red giant and swallow Mercury, Venus… and maybe even Earth. But don’t worry, none of us will be around for that."
Vinodh swiped his fingers, and the hologram expanded. Planets appeared one by one, orbiting the Sun. Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars. Arul watched as each one spun slowly, suspended in light.
"Mercury," Vinodh said, pointing. "Closest to the Sun. A ball of rock and metal, scorched on one side and freezing on the other. No atmosphere, no mercy."
"Then Venus, clouds of sulfuric acid, hotter than a furnace. Earth’s twisted twin. And here we are…" Philosophers referred to it as “the morning star” and “the evening star”, conveying different senses about how we understand meaning, identity, and knowledge. He tapped Earth. "Blue and green, with clouds like cotton. The only home we’ve ever known. 71% water and 29% land"
They hovered in silence for a moment, looking at the Earth.
"You ever wonder why we had to leave Earth, Arul?" Vinodh asked.
The boy’s face darkened. "Because people destroyed it. The insurgency. The ethnic war. The droughts. The smog over Colombo, the burning forests in Kandy. I remember. I was nine."
Vinodh nodded solemnly. "And still, we try again. That’s what makes us human."
The solar system zoomed out. Beyond Mars appeared the asteroid belt, then the gas giants, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune, each trailing moons like children. Arul's eyes widened as Saturn spun before him, its golden rings delicate and precise.
"Jupiter," Vinodh said, "the king. A thousand Earths could fit inside. Its gravity shields us from comets. You could say Jupiter is Earth’s ancient protector."
"And Saturn?"
"Elegant. Majestic. The rings are made of ice and rock, the remains of shattered moons. Beauty born of destruction."
Arul was silent. Vinodh watched him absorb it, his expression like a sponge drinking in rain.
Then the ship darkened again, and the image zoomed out, vastly. The planets became dots. Then nothing. The Milky Way appeared: a spiral galaxy of 200 billion stars. A swirl of stars, dust, gas, like cinnamon stirred into milk.
"We live in this arm of the galaxy," Vinodh explained, circling a tiny speck. "The Orion Arm. Imagine this: our Sun is just one of those stars. One. And even our galaxy… is just one of trillions."
Arul looked overwhelmed. “How… how can it be so big?”
Vinodh chuckled. “I used to ask that too, when I was your age. Back in Galle, on clear nights, I’d lie on the roof and stare at the sky. My grandfather would say, ‘Child, the sky is deep. Deeper than the ocean. And everything we are came from the atoms up there.’”
"Was he right?" Arul asked.
"Yes," Vinodh said. “Every atom in your body, your bones, your eyes, your blood, are made up of protons, neutrons, and electrons and was forged in a star that died long before our Sun was born. These atoms combine to form all the elements in the periodical table from Hydrogen to Oganesson. The Periodic Table consists of 118 elements. Each one has a special power. Some are tiny and light, others are heavy and mysterious. All of them work together to build the Universe, stars, water, air, your toys, and even your breakfast! All the elements are arranged by the number of protons they have.”
“You are stardust, Arul. Just like me.”
Arul looked down at his hands.
“Then… we’re not just Sri Lankan. We’re not even just human.”
“Exactly,” Vinodh said. “We’re part of the universe. We carry its memory.”
He tapped again. The Milky Way shrank, swallowed by a vast ocean of galaxies. Spiral, elliptical, irregular. Some were colliding. Some were alone. All ancient.
"This," Vinodh said, "is the observable universe. Thirteen-point-eight billion years old. Light, which travels at 186,000 miles per second, from the furthest reaches, is just now reaching us. And beyond that?"
“There are so many unknowns, too”
“There are around 2 trillion galaxies in the observable universe which we have been able to identify using the Hubble Space Telescope. Those that are still unknown are sending their light which is still travelling and has not yet reached us.”
“The light from the sun takes 8 minutes and 20 seconds to reach earth. This means that we actually see the sun only 8.3 minutes after it has actually appeared. The light from the moon takes just over 1 second to reach earth. Light from the nearest star, Proxima Cantauri, takes 4 years to reach earth, and this is what is actually called a ‘Light Year’.”
He paused.
Arul whispered, “Do you think there’s anyone else out there?”
Vinodh smiled. “I hope so. The universe is too large, too alive, for us to be alone. But even if we are… we have each other.”
“There are also black holes in the universe. They are spaces where gravity is so strong that nothing, not even light, can escape it. They are among the most mysterious and extreme objects in the universe. Black holes are formed when a star dies. Once it explodes in supernova the core collapses under its own gravity. If the core is heavy enough, then, it becomes a black hole. At the center of a black hole is a singularity, a point of infinite density where the laws of physics break down. Surrounding it is the event horizon, the “point of no return.” If you cross it, you can’t escape.”
The boy turned back to Earth, far behind them now. A delicate marble hanging in space.
“Do you think we’ll ever go back?” he asked.
Vinodh took a long breath. “One day. When we’ve learned to treat it with respect. When we’ve grown wiser. That’s why we brought people like you up here, to see, to learn, to carry the story of the stars.”
He placed a hand gently on Arul’s shoulder. “It’s your job now.”
Arul stood taller. For the first time, he felt the weight of it, not like a burden, but a calling.
“I won’t forget,” he said.
Vinodh nodded. “Good. Then we’re not lost.”
Outside, the stars shimmered. Somewhere, light from a supernova ten billion years ago was just reaching the ship. In the silence of space, a boy and a man drifted together, surrounded by the memory of creation.
And ahead of them, the universe waited.