13 November 2006

Extraterrestrial Trees of Life

zoom out
until the milky way
is centered on your map

with Earth a yellow dot
towards one edge

flatten the galaxy
down to two dimensions
and drop Earth's dot
extending backwards in time
as a corkscrewing yellow line
orbiting the sun

35 years back
allow some tiny yellow tendrils
to reach the Moon

100,000 years back
mark the transition
to intelligent life
by reverting the yellow corkscrew
to green (for unintelligent life)

add green tendrils
for any recent space shots
with hitchhiking microzoa

and don't rule out
hidden green life
arising independently
within the solar system




Earth's green line
has corkscrewed around the galactic center
some dozen times since life emerged
three billion years ago

the Earthless galaxy
continues back
another ten billion years
as do a near infinity
of other comparable galaxies

guaranteeing a near infinity
of corkscrewing green lines

with occasional yellow intelligences
with green and yellow space tendrils
some perhaps colonizing widely
in their own galaxy

an unknown number of yellow intelligences
existing now

a portrait gallery
of all yellow intelligences ever
outdoing the Star Wars cantina