Little Purple Planet

In a solar system very much like our own, in a galaxy across space and time, a handful of young planets circled a newly formed star.

“Momma!” the planets called as they orbited their Momma Star, and she answered each of them with energy and gravity. They had all been born from the same cloud of dust and now formed a young solar system in the far reaches of their galaxy. The planets closest to Momma Star were hot and baren. The middle planets were warm with complex atmospheres. Farther out drifted the gas giants. And the farthest planet with the widest orbit was a little purple world wrapped in a single frozen ocean.

From where the little purple planet orbited, her Momma Star was no larger than a shiny coin. At certain moments, when their orbits aligned, the voices of her sibling planets reached her as faint echoes. She was a very curious and energetic planet, but fate had put her on the farthest orbit, and there was not much to do at the outer edges of the solar system. Much like her surface, her orbital path was also desolate. She spun and twirled as she leaned over the edge of the solar system to see what might be beyond.

“Be careful out there, baby,” Momma Star called distantly. “The dark is bigger than it looks. You could get lost.”

“I know, Momma. I’m just looking,” the little purple planet called back. “There is not much to do out here, and a long time will pass until you grow into a red giant and warm my surface.” Patience did not come easily to the little planet, and she spun too fast and looked too far, until she felt the invisible hand of gravity fade away. Suddenly the curved path ahead had become a straight line.

“Momma?”

She tried to slow herself. She spun backward. She called. Momma's gravity stretched after her but ultimately fell short.

“Momma!” she cried.

The other planets called too, their voices overlapping in alarm, but they remained on their own orbits. The little purple planet drifted past the outer limits of her Momma’s solar system and out into interstellar space.

For a long time, she could still see home.

Momma Star shone on, smaller by the century. Then the glow disappeared, and the little purple planet's home became just another star in the endless void. She could no longer tell which one had once been hers.

She floated for millions of years.

At first, she kept track of time. Later, she counted the comets and asteroids, then she tried counting stars. Eventually she stopped counting. She learned that silence and loneliness were not the same. While silence was empty, loneliness was full of memory.

Then, after a long, long time, a new light rose before her. It grew slowly from a pinprick into a young white star surrounded by rings of dust. New planets were forming, clumsy and incomplete. They bumped into one another, trying to find their orbits.

“Are you lost, little purple planet?” the star asked. Her voice was gentle, and light slid over the little planet’s surface. She felt warm.

“Yes,” the little purple planet said hoarsely. These were the first words she had spoken in a long time. “I floated away from my Momma. It was an accident. Can you help me get home?”

The young star studied the darkness behind her. “I don’t know where your home is,” she said regretfully. “But you may stay here if you wish. I can pull you into a safe orbit. There is plenty of gravity, light, and heat.”

A gap appeared in the new family, between a newly formed red planet and a gas cloud. The little purple planet imagined herself there. She imagined learning new voices. And if this star weren’t her Momma, what would she call her? This solar system was not her home, and this star was not her Momma.

“Thank you,” she said, “but I think I must keep looking for my home.”

The young star did not argue. “Then come closer so my gravity can swing you around and send you onward.” The little purple planet hesitated, but she trusted the young star. She approached and felt heat across her frozen surface, and for a moment her ocean stirred. The star swept her around in a wide shining arc and released her toward a crowded field of distant stars, back in the direction from where the little purple planet came.

“I hope you find what you seek, little one,” the star called.

And the little purple planet carried those words with her for one hundred million more years of silence and darkness, until she entered an enormous gas cloud washed in bright white light. A tiny and unusually bright star came into view, with many darkened planets in close orbit. They were cracked black and rivers of fire ran across them. This star was brighter and hotter than anything the little purple planet had ever imagined.

“Hello there, precious little planet,” boomed the bright star. “Are you lost?”

“Yes,” the little purple planet answered. “I floated away from my Momma. It was an accident. Can you help me get home?”

“Of course I can. Come closer, and I will swing you in the proper direction. I have tremendous mass, and my gravity can provide a powerful boost to get you back on track,” the unusually bright star boasted.

The little purple planet watched a burning world pass between them. Its surface peeled away in a glowing tail.

“How do you know which direction is proper?” she asked cautiously.

The bright star pulsed. “I am old, baby. Older than you can imagine. I have seen many things and I know many things. You will just have to trust me.”

But the little purple planet did not trust this star. She spun with all the energy she had against the star’s pull. Heat tore vapor from her surface. The star slowly shrank behind her and the little planet escaped with a silent wave. For many millennia, she did not look back.

After that, the little purple planet was more careful. She traveled for what felt like eternity. She passed through galaxies where stars glimmered behind enormous clouds of space debris, through the ruins of cosmic systems whose stars had vanished, and by other worlds without mothers, wandering as she wandered. Once, another lost planet crossed her path. A lonely traveler. They spoke for a century and eventually separated. Neither said goodbye.

One billion years passed.

By then, the little planet had forgotten the sounds and sights of her home solar system. She had forgotten whether Momma Star’s light had been yellow or white. She knew only that she had belonged somewhere, and she guarded that knowledge deep beneath her frozen surface.

Eventually, she drifted into a void so dark and strange that she feared she might never find her way out. Suddenly, a new voice reached her, seemingly from all directions at once.

“Hello, little purple planet. Are you lost?” The voice was deep and calm.

“I am,” she said, but then stopped herself. Better to learn more before telling the voice anything else. “Who are you? Where are you? I see nothing, you understand.”

“Of course I understand, little one. I am as old as time itself,” the voice boomed gently.

“Are you… a black hole?”

“No, little one. I am something which you simply cannot understand.”

The little planet became afraid and tried to spin away, but she could not find a direction. She seemed completely suspended in time and space.

“Are you going to eat me?” she asked. “A star tried once.”

The darkness considered this.

“Why don’t you let me ask the questions?” the voice said. “Do you believe that the universe goes on forever in all directions? Or is it round like the surface of a ball, so that a traveler who goes far enough returns to where she began?”

The little purple planet considered this question for a long time. Eventually she replied.

“I don’t know,” she admitted. “I suppose it doesn’t much matter—the nature of the universe and all that—if we are not where we belong,” she finally concluded.

A prolonged period of silence followed. It seemed to stretch for eternity. Then the little purple planet felt a tremor pass through her. The darkness seemed to seep into her, and before she could speak, immense gravity took hold and she began to fall. She fell faster toward nowhere. Stars appeared behind her and stretched into white streaks.

Momma was right, she thought.

Time slipped strangely around her. She watched galaxies elongate and fade. New stars ignited in bright clouds while old ones faded into darkness. The universe rushed past, and for one terrible instant, she believed that she was being sucked into the end of everything.

Then, just as suddenly, the whirl stopped, and she was floating through the emptiness of space. The voice was gone, and she was on her own again. She looked around and saw nothing but the vastness of the cosmos and the deep web of stars stretching in all directions.

Where was she? Where did she come from? How far had she traveled? How far would she travel still? Did she belong somewhere? Do we all belong somewhere, and is there ever enough time to get there?

Only the universe knows.