Cosmic Processes

"Starfog."

In the outer region of the "Cloud Universe" globular cluster, a subjovian planet had orbited a star at a distance of 1.5 billion kilometers. Its atmosphere was hydrohelium and methane while ice and frozen gases surrounded its core. Infalling matter caused the star to swell and to consume its inner planets. On the subjovian, stellar pulsations melted ice and boiled oceans, leaving an airless, Earth-sized metal and rock globe. Released tectonic forced raised mountains from the cratered stone plain. Meteorites and heat have eroded the older mountains although newer peaks remain sharp. Even at minimal size, the still pulsating sun, with its tenuous red atmosphere surrounding a blue core, remains immense, covering seven degrees of the former subjovian's sky. A newly condensed blue star as bright as a hundred Sols passes close and, from the planet's surface, the cluster is visible as a spherical glowing cloud of light containing thousands of individually discernible stars, mostly red but also golden, emerald and sapphire.