INTRODUCTION

Around 4.57 billion years ago, our part of the Galaxy was approaching a cusp in time and space that, once passed, would see the beginning of an irreversible process of star and planet formation. Our solar system would result. Just before it happened, our cloud of gas and dust had a past but no future – it wasn't quite dense enough on its own to begin gravitational contractions that would result in the birth of a star and associated planets. With no external stimulus it probably would just remain a cloud – formless, highly diffuse and without apparent purpose. But in a very intimate sense it was our cloud – we were all there, represented unknowingly by the atoms of which we are today composed.

A cusp is a point defined by the tangential convergence of two curves. The time line of our cloud was converging with the time line of a nearby giant star that had become unstable and was set to collapse inward with unimaginable intensity. This would initiate a supernova and splash part of itself out into space in an ejaculation of cosmic violence. Part of this giant splash was directed toward us (to be). The first signal of the nearby supernova was a flash of electromagnetic radiation, of which the part we call visible light is a tiny segment, washing into and through our cloud; perhaps for the first time illuminating its murky interior for no one to see.