To Asking What If?
Recently, I've been exposed to a lot of material questioning the limits of the human society. Walking home under an absolutely beautiful night sky, combined with a pensive state-of-mind, it really got me thinking. I guess I'll send off my first post with an anecdote:
With so much stillness and silence about the night, it was easy to spot the silhouettes of three men and their long instruments... for they were the only things that moved within miles of this remote area. Each of them sat in fold-up chairs with their coffee mugs in one hand, frequently peering into the eyepieces of their telescopes pointed straight up into the heart of the Fremont sky. They had come on a perfect night; the stars knew they were being watched; each molecule of a star battled one another fiercely to be recognized, even for a fraction of a second, by the three men. With their precision instruments to gather distant light, the astronomers had hiked all the way up to this clearing just to have a sight of the dazzling sky and its infinite amount of stars, trying to bring them closer, trying to understand.
Earth has such a small existence compared to the vast, infinite expanse of the universe. When will we ever know what is out there? One is reminded of Carl Sagan’s description of the “Pale Blue Dot” of the Earth, the photograph of a tiny speck caught alone in a sunbeam by the pioneer satellite Voyager 1, the only speck that had life. Carl Sagan warned us of the frailty of our tiny home and how there was no guarantee that help would come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. Although humans can bring the stars and planets that are thousands of light years away much closer to themselves—simply by looking through a lens—I cannot help but wonder if we will ever find intelligent life anywhere but our own planet, no matter how many telescopes we use. Is the perfect combination of a solar distance, atmosphere, and temperature to nurture intelligent life, anywhere else than Earth? Are we the lonely examples of that, anywhere?
As those three men aimed their finely turned instruments at the night sky, and peered at the distant island universes of galaxies each composed of billions of stars, do they really care if we are alone? Or, that there may not be life up there. Or, do they just simply wonder at the immense beauty of a creation they cannot understand completely? Maybe it is simply enough for them to know that that these unknowable creations, the stars, the galaxies, the planets and nebulae are merely beautiful to watch from here on Earth, in this enchanting forest, on a mountain top, on a clear night.
With so much stillness and silence about the night, it was easy to spot the silhouettes of three men and their long instruments... for they were the only things that moved within miles of this remote area. Each of them sat in fold-up chairs with their coffee mugs in one hand, frequently peering into the eyepieces of their telescopes pointed straight up into the heart of the Fremont sky. They had come on a perfect night; the stars knew they were being watched; each molecule of a star battled one another fiercely to be recognized, even for a fraction of a second, by the three men. With their precision instruments to gather distant light, the astronomers had hiked all the way up to this clearing just to have a sight of the dazzling sky and its infinite amount of stars, trying to bring them closer, trying to understand.
Earth has such a small existence compared to the vast, infinite expanse of the universe. When will we ever know what is out there? One is reminded of Carl Sagan’s description of the “Pale Blue Dot” of the Earth, the photograph of a tiny speck caught alone in a sunbeam by the pioneer satellite Voyager 1, the only speck that had life. Carl Sagan warned us of the frailty of our tiny home and how there was no guarantee that help would come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. Although humans can bring the stars and planets that are thousands of light years away much closer to themselves—simply by looking through a lens—I cannot help but wonder if we will ever find intelligent life anywhere but our own planet, no matter how many telescopes we use. Is the perfect combination of a solar distance, atmosphere, and temperature to nurture intelligent life, anywhere else than Earth? Are we the lonely examples of that, anywhere?
As those three men aimed their finely turned instruments at the night sky, and peered at the distant island universes of galaxies each composed of billions of stars, do they really care if we are alone? Or, that there may not be life up there. Or, do they just simply wonder at the immense beauty of a creation they cannot understand completely? Maybe it is simply enough for them to know that that these unknowable creations, the stars, the galaxies, the planets and nebulae are merely beautiful to watch from here on Earth, in this enchanting forest, on a mountain top, on a clear night.
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