#cometposting

Comet Lemmon☄️

POST: Amazing Physics

step one: assemble your ingredients you'll need - one icy core (preferably ancient) - a handful of dust - an organic desire to leave everything you've ever loved step two: pick your path! don't overthink it! you'll only be stuck in this loop for eternity. just choose a path that slingshots you anywhere you wanna go! - pro tip: don't tell anyone about it, bonus points if no one can predict where you're going! step three: start running gain speed. more. more. if you think it's enough, it's not. faster. you don't know where you're running to. you should just know what you're running from. this is when the sunlight will burn tails off of you. you're going to be beautiful step four: prepare for the fans! :) there's going to be a lot! all the humans will point and gasp. - make sure to wave when they make wishes on you - your flight is a spectacle - enjoy being seen. it doesn't matter if it's how you wanted step five: promise you'll be back every comet does this! it's a tradition - say it soft, a little like this: i'll be back - now say something you can almost believe: i won't be long - and end it with a lie: you won't even know i was gone step six: go away even when you circle close. even when the warmth makes you think you're home. remember the comet's job: pass through. never land. through the stars. just a flirt step seven: disappear - go into the cold - let the dark close like a door - keep going until - you are rumor and memory - knowing that just once, for a moment, - you were bright enough to be seen step eight: return - look down. none of the faces are the same - all the mouths that gasped at you are rotting now - the hands that pointed children towards you - have joined the dust trail behind you - this is when you find out coming home means nothing - when you're loyal to a century that's barely a ghost - you're scared, so - it's time to repeat the orbit now - a comet only knows one direction: - running away.

So if you pointed a telescope at it, you'd be looking at an icy visitor only one astronomical unit away, perfectly lined up against galaxies so distant their light began its journey long before humans existed. Tsk, this is proof that the universe loves a good flyby.