From Stars to Soil

The Night Sky Archive, The Dirt Project, and the Materials We Inherit from the Past

This season, Shank Gym is launching two separate but connected projects: The Night Sky Archive, The Dirt Project, and The Deep Time Project.

They are separate in method but connected by material. One documents what can be seen above a race venue at night. The other documents what can be collected from the ground during the day. Together, they record the same matter at different stages of the same process.

The Night Sky Archive is a record of astronomical objects and sky conditions observed and imaged over time, with primary focus on nebulae and galaxies. It does not attempt discovery, interpretation, or formal analysis beyond documentation. Each entry captures what was visible from a specific location on a specific night, using consistent tools and repeatable methods. It is an archive in the literal sense: a growing record of observations made and kept.

The Dirt Project documents soil and surface material collected from race venues and surrounding areas. Samples are photographed, examined, and described with attention to texture, composition, and local context. No claims are made beyond what can be reasonably inferred from observation and basic reference material. Like the Night Sky Archive, it is a record of what was found, not an argument about what it means.

These projects run alongside each other throughout the season. Each weekend adds another entry—sometimes to one archive, sometimes to both. Over time, patterns emerge not because they are sought, but because repetition makes them visible.

The connection between the two projects is not symbolic. It is physical.

Element Formation: What Earth Did Not Create

The early universe contained very little variety of matter. After the Big Bang, it consisted primarily of hydrogen and helium, with trace amounts of lithium. The elements required for rock, soil, and life—carbon, oxygen, silicon, iron, calcium—did not yet exist in meaningful quantities.

Every element heavier than helium was produced later, inside stars.

Through nuclear fusion, stars convert lighter elements into heavier ones. Smaller stars fuse hydrogen into helium. Larger stars progress through successive fusion stages, producing carbon, oxygen, neon, magnesium, silicon, sulfur, and iron. Fusion stops at iron because reactions beyond that point consume energy rather than release it.

When massive stars reach this limit, they collapse and explode as supernovae. These explosions eject newly formed elements into surrounding space at high velocity. Additional heavy elements are created during the explosion itself through neutron capture processes.

None of this material originates on Earth.

The calcium in limestone, the iron in red clay, the silicon in sand, and the aluminum in soil minerals were all formed in stars that no longer exist. Astrophotography captures regions where this material remains visible in transit and storage, long before it becomes part of any planet.

Nebulae as Elemental Reservoirs

Nebulae are not simply distant objects to photograph. They are active reservoirs of material.

A nebula is composed of gas and dust enriched by earlier generations of stars. Hydrogen and helium dominate its mass, but mixed within are heavier elements—carbon, oxygen, silicon, iron—produced through stellar fusion and distributed by supernova explosions. This material does not disappear. It accumulates, disperses, recompresses, and is reused.

Nebulae are therefore not endpoints. They are transitional environments where elemental material is stored, redistributed, and prepared for the next stage of assembly. New stars form within them. Circumstellar disks form around those stars. Solid bodies may eventually emerge, but the process begins here.

Galaxies function at a larger scale in the same way. They are not static collections of stars, but long-lived systems that retain and recycle elemental material over billions of years. Gas expelled by dying stars remains gravitationally bound to the galaxy, contributing to future star formation. The elements found on planets are inherited from this galactic recycling process.

Planets are not sources of material. They are sorting mechanisms. They gather, concentrate, and differentiate matter that already exists.

The Night Sky Archive focuses primarily on nebulae and galaxies because they represent the stage at which elemental material is still mobile and unsettled. What is observed there is not a finished structure, but a supply of matter still in circulation.

From Elemental Material to Planetary Surfaces

After repeated cycles of stellar formation and destruction, regions of galaxies become enriched enough in heavy elements to form solid bodies.

The solar system formed approximately 4.6 billion years ago from a collapsing molecular cloud containing hydrogen, helium, and heavier elements recycled from earlier stars. As the cloud collapsed, it flattened into a rotating disk. Most material fell into the forming Sun. The remainder aggregated into solid bodies through collision and gravitational attraction.

Earth formed through accretion: countless impacts between rocky and metallic objects composed of silicates, iron, and other heavy elements. Early Earth was molten. Dense elements sank toward the core, while lighter materials formed the mantle and crust.

At this stage, there was no soil. Only rock.

As the planet cooled, a solid crust formed. Water condensed and accumulated on the surface. Atmospheric gases stabilized. Over long timescales, exposed rock was altered by physical, chemical, and biological processes.

This transition marks the shift from astronomical material to geological material. The substance itself does not change identity. It changes condition.

How Rock Becomes Dirt

Dirt, or soil, is not a primary substance. It is the result of transformation.

Rock is broken down through several mechanisms:

• Physical weathering: temperature changes, freeze–thaw cycles, abrasion by wind and water

• Chemical weathering: reactions with water, oxygen, and acids that alter mineral structures

• Biological activity: roots, microbes, fungi, and animals contributing organic matter and mechanical disruption

Over time, these processes reduce solid rock into smaller particles: sand, silt, and clay. Minerals are altered. New compounds form. Organic material accumulates.

Soil is therefore a mixture of mineral particles derived from parent rock, organic matter produced by biological processes, and water and air occupying pore spaces. It is layered, heterogeneous, and specific to location.

Nothing in soil is accidental. Every grain reflects mechanical force, chemical environment, and time.

Dirt as a Record of Settlement

Dirt is often treated as something to be avoided or removed. Scientifically, it is a record.

A soil sample contains information about underlying geology, climate patterns, water movement, biological activity, and human disturbance. When examined under magnification, dirt reveals structure: angular versus rounded grains, layering, oxidation states indicated by color, organic inclusions, and particle size distribution.

These features are not interpretive. They are physical outcomes.

Dirt represents material that has completed a long sequence of transformations. Energy has been expended. Motion has slowed. Gravity and chemistry have reached temporary equilibrium.

The Dirt Project documents this settled state.

Motion and Rest

Astrophotography records material that is still in motion or transition.

Light captured in an image may have traveled thousands or millions of years before reaching the sensor. Gas clouds are collapsing under gravity. Shock fronts expand from stellar explosions. Dust is dispersed, compressed, or reassembled.

Even images that appear static represent ongoing processes governed by gravity, pressure, radiation, and time.

Soil represents the opposite condition.

Dirt is material that has largely stopped moving. High-energy reactions are no longer occurring. What remains is a mechanically and chemically stable configuration that changes slowly unless disturbed.

This distinction is not philosophical. It is thermodynamic.

The Night Sky Archive records material that is still circulating.The Dirt Project records material that has settled.

Why Document Both

Documenting both the sky and the ground closes a material loop.

The Night Sky Archive documents where elemental material is stored, recycled, and redistributed before it is incorporated into planets. The Dirt Project documents where that same material ends up after it has been incorporated into Earth and transformed by surface processes.

The same elements appear in both records. Silicon appears in nebular dust and in sand grains. Iron appears in supernova remnants and in soil oxides. Carbon appears in molecular clouds and in organic matter. Calcium appears in stellar fusion products and in limestone-derived soils.

There is no boundary between these domains other than scale and time.

Human Activity as a Temporary Disturbance

Race venues introduce short-term disturbances into long-term geological systems. Foot traffic compacts soil. Vehicles redistribute material. Construction alters drainage. Course markings and infrastructure temporarily rearrange surface layers.

Over time, these disturbances fade. Wind, rain, and gravity reassert control. The underlying material history remains.

Collecting dirt from these locations captures a momentary configuration within a much longer process. Human presence is visible, but not dominant.

The same is true in astronomical observation. Nebulae disperse. Stars burn out. Structures evolve or collapse. What is recorded represents a temporary arrangement within a larger timeline.

Neither archive centers human activity. Both document systems that persist regardless of it.

Scale Without Hierarchy

Astronomical subjects are often treated as more significant than terrestrial ones due to scale alone. Scientifically, scale does not imply importance.

A nebula and a handful of dirt are composed of the same categories of matter and governed by the same physical laws. One occupies more space. The other occupies a more stable state.

Documenting both without privileging one over the other produces a more complete record of material reality.

One Material, Two Conditions

The Night Sky Archive and The Dirt Project are not separate interests. They are two observational methods applied to the same material at different points in its lifecycle.

Stars form elements.Nebulae store and recycle them.Galaxies retain them.Planets gather them. Rock breaks down. Dirt accumulates.

Nothing is added. Nothing is lost.

The Night Sky Archive records material before it settles.The Dirt Project records material after it has.

Together, they form a season-long body of field work: one looking outward, one looking down, both recording what is present without embellishment.