For me the above video-image from NASA’s Parker Solar Probe is the most haunting image taken of the sun, partly because of the composition, the two distorted squares shoved together and the rapidly changing numbers set in the bottom left, but mainly because of the solar stream it passes through – I think even interstellar could have taken a lesson from this video in creating haunting space imagery. The streamer first feels similar to an image of a massive ocean swell heaving into view, but quickly disintegrates into a sparky chaos. It’s a reminder that light is a phenomenon that offers experiences in motion as versatile as that offered by an ocean. This video came out in 2021 when I had just finished the first attempt at my philosophical essay, a version called The Pressure of Light. For a video-reading I created of this version, I layered Pressure of Light over the Parker Solar Probe video for the title shot:

The probe’s image was perfect for the title both in effect and meaning, because Pressure of Light actually refers to the fact that light does exert a minute amount of pressure against everything it collides with. When I first read these words in an Einstein quote about the conceptual outcomes of James Clerk Maxwell’s equations describing electric and magnetic fields, I was affected more by the poetry of the words than the meaning, but all together was compelled to use The Pressure of Light as that first essay’s title, and later the publisher name for my book. The quote was part of the essay and video, and is clipped below (editorial note: I misspelled Maxwell’s middle name in the video):