Just a little observation for the weekend.
Some time ago, myself and my flatmate were chilling of an evening, looking up at the sky as we walked back from the pub.
Myself: Look, Planet.
Flatmate: Where?
Myself: There. That bright star up there. It's a planet.
Flatmate: How do you know that?
Myself: It's on the Ecliptic. The Equator, basically. It's on the line the Sun appears to travel on, this arc here (I gestured with my hand). You only get planets on that line, because we all orbit on the same plane. It's also just slightly too bright to be a star. There's only a handful of stars THAT bright, and none of them lie on the ecliptic.
Flatmate: So, which one is it?
Myself : Well, my guess is Jupiter. Venus only shows at Sundown or Sunset, and I'm sure I saw Mars a few weeks back. Saturn is the same size as an ordinary star, so it really has to be Jupiter.
Flatmate: I'll take your word for it.
Pause.
Myself: Makes you think though.
Flatmate: In what way?
Myself: Well, Jupiter is f**king huge, God knows how many times bigger than the Earth, and the Earth seems HUGE to us. Yet look how small it looks. Makes you realise how far away it is. SO far away it looks that tiny, when it is so many times BIGGER than the entire world that means everything to us, that IS everything.
Flatmate: I'd never really thought about it.
Myself: It is pretty mad stuff though, ain't it?
Pause
Myself: Actually, it ISN'T really, is it? There's nothing really that odd about a big object looking small JUST because it's far away. That's normal, really. There's nothing actually that amazing about the universe being big and us being small.
The stars are a lot bigger and a lot further away, but that doesn't seem crazy.
What IS amazing, is that such a huge object, so many times the size of the Earth, yet so far away I can blot it's image out with my finger, has been photographed close up using HUMAN technology, and those images successfully relayed to US, us here. We've seen close pictures of an object THAT far away. THAT'S amazing.
(Pause)
Flatmate: I suppose it is really, now you come to mention it.
Myself: We are pretty amazing creatures really. To be able to do stuff like that. People just don't appreciate it. They don't see just how amazing we are. We f**king photographed Jupiter! One day we'll go there. We're going to do so many amazing things if we can stop pointing missiles at eachother and wasting our days playing swap the assets. There is hope, you know. Humanity is f**king amazing.
Flatmate: I hope you're right. I know you really hope that.
Myself: I do, I do. But you know what? I have faith that my vision will pan out. We're too good to just go up in mushroom clouds. See them stars? They really do belong to us.
That's all I have to say, people.
Those stars belong to Man.
Reach for them.
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17 comments:
hey, you wrapped up that ending really nicely :)
there is this man that I see every tuesday night when we all take our kids to Scouts. He is unappealing to me in almost all aspects but one night he brought his giant telescope with him, on a tripod, and let all the children have a look at the stars and planets.
I asked if I could have a turn and he let me. While I was staring up at the vision - he was talking to me about what I was looking at and how far they all were away and what their history was and I swear - I could of married him right there. There is something very mystical and ancient and connecting about two people looking up to the night sky together.
Sometimes something will make me realise just how small we are in the grand scheme of things. But then I think of everything we've achieved and it never fails to amaze me.
Two in one day! My bloglines is humming.
Nothing like looking at the stars to make one feel insignificant however.
But each year we reach out a little farther and know a little more about the world out there.
This is simply beautiful,
I've always wanted to go up there one night, comb the sky and put some stars in my backpack to take around with me. ;)
Sending you peace friend,
Maithri
All in good time . . . or beyond time, perhaps . . . the stars belong to us . . . and we belong to the stars . . .
bbhug, you are so right, sister, I don't care what god you believe in or what values you hold, the stars are always sacred!
Crushed, there is a consternation in the way the night sky can make us feel insignificant yet inspired.
Crushed, I am full of admiration that you are so erudite on your way BACK from the pub!
Betty- It always makes me think when I look up at it.
I feel like a child looking out of a window sometimes.
They make me feel that history has just started.
Oestrebunny- We are completely irrelevant, I guess to life in the Andromeda Galaxy. But I think we- or anything else elsewhere that is like us- is a fundamental departure from the ordinary laws of life.
Small as e might be, i do believe we are the finiest creation of the universe- something capable of tuning into the universe itself.
jmb- To me that inspires me- it shows how much there is ahead. Sometimes I look at those stars and wonder if my descendants will live on any of them.
Maithri- Well there's enough of them...
100 billion in this galaxy alone...
Big place the universe, but we don't seem to be bothered about it.
Oceanshaman- Well, yes, we all have bits of star in us, this star system and everything in it is third generaion at least, so all the matter in it came from a supernova.
Helen- Significance I suppose, is about perspective. We will ALWAYS be significant to us- who is there beyond to be significant to?
The rest is a matter of scale- we just hve a very big playground.
Welshcakes- I never really drink to excess, but yes, I can wax lyrical after a few pints. If you ever see comments by me at 11:30 or later, there's always a good chance I've had a few pints first.
C by I; the sky has been brilliant these last few days.
I woke up to take JRT for a late night final, and the air was full of light...
The stars are shooting in my Soul.
Hope springs eternal, Crushed.
They used to be a tradition of this kind of illustrative conversational plays - we should revive it!!
But not in German translation...
Scroblene- I've noticed, I have found myself stargazing, as I always do when the sky is clear.
It's wierd thinking that some of the stars we see, the light was expounded before we were born. Look to other galaxies (and the Andromeda galaxy IS visible to the naked eye), that left its source before our species existed.
Alexys- You sum things up so admirably. You are so... alive.
Your soul truly is aglow.
James- Have faith James. as a Christian, you MUST believe in the future- not in some ghostly otherlife but HERE.
That's the REAL point.
Mutley- This conversation did actually happen. My flatmate is used to it. I really respect her for the fact that she just takes in her stride, my odd ramblings.
Have you ever tried reading Kant?
It seems that conversation was really only with yourself, and D gave you a chance to just air your thoughts.
I like that picture of Jupiter. It looks like a face. The spot is an open mouth, and the white spot higher up looks like an eye. Creepy much?
Nothing better than looking at the stars coming home from the pub. It wasn't that long ago we had a lunar eclipse on a Saturday night, about 10:00 - now that's a recipe for philosophical discussion if there ever was one...
In the scheme of things getting to the other planets in our solar system is easy compared to the requirements for us to go to another star.
Everything in our solar system is a few light minutes away. Yet the furthest we have traveled 12 light minutes. The nearest star is something like 4.2 light years away.
We are a long way from reaching to the stars and only a break through in technology will allow it. It will also need to be a break through in a field we are only currently looking at theoretically. No real money has been invested in it.
So unless we are lucky enough to be visited by nice aliens who pass on the technology. We are a long way away from traveling the distances required. And ask yourself this. Would you pass on a technology that would unleash our species on the galaxy?
I miss the days when the sky fascinated me so much. There's too much on the ground occupying my time and attention, it seems.
(oh, and I will get to the meme one of these days, I promise!)
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