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Prologue — The Birth of Chaos
Every world begins in dust — not the sterile residue of ruin but the incandescent dust of promise. Between gravity’s appetite and chaos’s whisper, matter learns to move, to merge, to imagine. Four and a half billion years ago, our Solar System was such a forge: molten protoplanets collided, coalesced, and kindled. From cataclysm rose structure; from violence, the serenity of orbits.
We believed such beginnings lay forever behind us — until our telescopes showed otherwise. Through Hubble’s unblinking eye, the Universe revealed another system still sculpting itself from wreckage — a mirror to our own primordial adolescence.
NASA/ESA Hubble image of Fomalhaut’s debris ring — a vast halo of icy fragments and dust. (Credit: NASA/ESA/Paul Kalas)
The Case of Fomalhaut — Alpha Piscis Austrini
Barely 25 light-years from Earth burns Fomalhaut, an A-type star radiant and young, encircled by a vast debris ring — a cosmic halo of shattered ice and rock. Astronomers celebrated the first directly imaged planet, Fomalhaut b, yet the planet dissolved into an expanding dust cloud. In 2023, a second bright knot appeared elsewhere in the disk, confirmed by Science (Dec 2025) as:
“A second planetesimal collision in the Fomalhaut system.”
Two impacts, twenty years apart, seen from twenty-five light-years away — a living replay of planetary creation, echoing our Solar System’s infancy.
Hubble’s Revelation — Dust in Motion
The debris clouds cs1 and cs2 expanding within the Fomalhaut belt — destruction as creation. (NASA/ESA/Paul Kalas et al.)
Other Cradles of Creation
HD 172555 — Silicate vapour detected, evidence of a giant planetary collision.
Beta Pictoris — A 20 Myr-old disk with exocomets and dust streams, sculpted by Beta Pic b.
Epsilon Eridani — Multi-belt system, reminiscent of our asteroid and Kuiper zones.
HL Tauri — ALMA imaging revealed intricate protoplanetary rings.
AU Microscopii — Edge-on disk ripples with dust clumps from ongoing collisions.
ALMA’s image of HL Tauri — concentric dust rings sculpted by emerging planets. (ESO/ALMA)
Srothaswani — The Cosmic River of Flow
In Indic cosmology, the celestial river Srothaswani — the heavenly Gaṅgā — springs from the locks of Śiva as Naṭarāja, the cosmic dancer in Orion. Flowing across the night sky as Eridanus, it descends toward Fomalhaut, glimmering at its mouth. This cosmic river parallels both mythology and physics.
Eridanus — 51 Eridani b, a Jupiter-like exoplanet with methane, water, and ammonia.
Artist’s render of 51 Eridani b, a Jupiter-mass exoplanet orbiting its host star.
(Credit: NASA, ESA, and G. Bacon [STScI], Public Domain)
Source
Hubble Space Telescope image of 51 Eridani b — a Jupiter-like exoplanet in the Eridanus system.
(Credit: Gemini Planet Imager / NASA)
Fomalhaut — Fomalhaut System, a debris disk alive with planetesimal collisions.
Eridanus Constellation (IAU) — By IAU and Sky & Telescope magazine (Roger Sinnott & Rick Fienberg), CC BY 3.0
Source
Piscis Austrinus (Fomalhaut) Constellation
Southern Hemisphere Sky Overview
Interlude — Srothas, Rāga, and Flow
In Āyurveda, the srotas are vital channels that convey life — carrying rasa (nourishment), rakta (blood), and prāṇa (vital breath). In the celestial body, the Eridanus–Fomalhaut corridor is a cosmic srotas — an artery of formation where matter circulates into meaning.
Srothaswini — The Rāga of Flow
In Carnatic music, Srothaswini rāgam embodies this same fluid grace — a pentatonic mode gliding through continuity, akin to the river’s unbroken chant or the star’s rhythmic pulse. Thus, in body, cosmos, and melody alike, the principle is one: flow sustains creation.
The ascending and descending scale of Srothaswini — a rāga of serene liquidity, symbolising the same continuum that animates stars, rivers, and consciousness.
From Science to Sentience
When modern astronomy peers through Hubble and Webb, it perceives what Indian cosmology intuited millennia ago — the unity of creation and dissolution. The tāṇḍava of Naṭarāja is not mythology but metaphysics in motion: planets collide, dust regenerates, and energy dances eternally between becoming and being.
Glossary
Term
Meaning
AU (Astronomical Unit)
Mean Earth–Sun distance ≈ 149.6 million km; used for interplanetary scales.
ALMA (Atacama Large Millimeter Array)
High-altitude Chilean observatory imaging cool gas and dust; produced the famous HL Tauri rings.
A-type Star
Hot white-blue main-sequence star (7 500–10 000 K). Fomalhaut is one.
Ayurveda
Classical Indian medical science describing the flow systems (srotas) sustaining life.
Beta Pictoris
Young (~20 Myr) star with dusty disk and planet β Pic b — an analogue of early Solar System evolution.
Caraka Saṃhitā / Suśruta Saṃhitā
Foundational Ayurvedic treatises expounding the doctrine of the srotas.
Coronagraph
Telescope device blocking starlight so faint exoplanets or disks become visible.
Debris Disk
Ring of dust and rock from colliding planetesimals — the fossil record of formation.
Direct Imaging
Capturing light directly from an exoplanet instead of inferring it by transit or wobble.
Eridanus
Constellation interpreted as a celestial river; in Indic sky-lore, Srothaswani Gaṅgā.
Exoplanet
Planet orbiting a star other than the Sun; > 5 500 confirmed by 2026.
Fomalhaut
Bright A-type star 25 ly away in Piscis Austrinus; site of repeated planetesimal collisions.
Gamma Doradus Variable
Star pulsating due to surface oscillations, varying subtly in brightness.
HL Tauri
Infant star whose disk, imaged by ALMA, displays concentric planetary rings.
HR 8799
Vega-like star with four directly imaged planets; paradigm for multi-planet imaging.
JWST (James Webb Space Telescope)
Infrared observatory (launched 2021) revealing young worlds and their atmospheres.
Kuiper Belt
Icy region beyond Neptune, Solar-System analogue of debris belts like Fomalhaut’s.
Metropolitan Museum of Art — Śiva as Naṭarāja Bronze (Accession No. 1994.135).
Gemini Planet Imager Consortium — Direct Imaging of 51 Eridani b (2015).
Keck Observatory — Orbital Motion of the HR 8799 Planets Dataset (2008 – Present).
ESA / NASA / JWST Releases (2024). Epsilon Indi Ab — A Cold Jupiter-like Exoplanet.
Śrīmad Bhāgavata Purāṇa — Vedic cosmological allusions to the Gaṅgā’s descent.
Bibliotheque Archival Note
This essay forms part of the Bibliotheque Series — Science, Memory and the Indian Gaze,
an evolving digital library chronicling intersections between Indian thought and modern science.
Each entry is an independent folio, blending empirical observation with cultural introspection,
preserving the syncretic spirit of knowledge — vidyā and vigyān in dialogue.
Acknowledgements
NASA / ESA Hubble Team and Paul Kalas (UC Berkeley).
European Southern Observatory (ALMA & VLT Collaborations).
Bibliotheque Series — Science, Memory, and the Indian Gaze
All textual, visual, and design elements in this publication — including but not limited to the original essays,
research annotations, conceptual framework, and poster artworks — are the intellectual property of
Dhinakar Rajaram and are protected under applicable copyright laws and international conventions.
No part of this work may be reproduced, transmitted, stored, or adapted in any form — whether electronic, mechanical,
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or scholarly purposes must include full citation and acknowledgment of the
Bibliotheque Series and the author.
This essay forms part of the ongoing project
“Bibliotheque — Science, Memory, and the Indian Gaze”,
an archival series dedicated to exploring the confluence of Indian cosmological insight and modern scientific discovery.
All rights reserved worldwide.
Sources:Science (Dec 2025); NASA / ESA / ALMA / JWST Releases; Metropolitan Museum of Art;
Ayurvedic and Carnatic References as cited.
Hashtags & Themes:
#Fomalhaut — The star where new worlds are being born •
#PlanetFormation — Collisions and creation in real time •
#Bibliotheque — Archival essays of science and Indian thought •
#Eridanus — The celestial river, Srothaswani Gaṅgā •
#Srothaswani — Flow of matter, mind, and melody •
#Naṭarāja — The cosmic dancer in perpetual creation •
#Exoplanets — Worlds beyond the Sun •
#Ayurveda — Life’s channels mirrored in the cosmos •
#CarnaticMusic — Sound as flow and structure •
#CosmicOrigins — The birth and renewal of universes •
#PlanetaryCollisions — Destruction as divine renewal •
#Astrophysics — Science in its most poetic form •
#IndianCosmology — Bridging the sacred and the scientific gaze.
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