The long lens of Hubble a spyglass peering back and back to the dawn of time, caught in the refraction of a billion galaxies the nebula that glitter between the stars like briny sea mists on the ebb and flow of cosmic tides; one canvass in particular swimming into focus as the eyepiece zeroes in – the three-lobed interstellar bloom, a slight tweak of the name enough to bring to mind Wyndham’s ambulant plant with its taste for human flesh, with its carnivorous appetites; in

"How inappropriate to call this planet Earth, when it is quite clearly Ocean." – Arthur C. Clarke How right he was – an ocean world, an orb of light in a sea of darkness. As if here is a beacon to hold the shadows at bay in our little corner of the Spiral Arm. The Titania of planets, overflowing with life, the figment of a mid-summer night’s dream. Rotund and majestic. Rolling through its orbit with all the gravitas of an Easter Island monument, its winward countenance immu