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Subject: Starry thoughts...
Time: 5:04:00 PM EST
Author: stuartatk
WELCOME TO READERS OF THIS WEEK'S "CARNIVAL OF SPACE" :-)
Every so often you stumble across a picture that really stops you in your tracks. That's happened to me a lot recently: the picture of the "martian pit" featured on Phil Plait's list of "Top Ten Images of 2007"... the pic released yesterday of the cosmic jet shooting out of one galaxy and blasting into the side of another... an image of Comet Holmes glowing serenely among the jewel-like stars of Perseus, fading now after its brief few weeks in the spotlight...
But this morning when I went to Astronomy Picture of The Day I saw a picture that literally made me shake my head in wonder.
Basically that's a picture of an area of the central Milky Way known as "Baade's Window", but if you want to know more about it, and about its photographer too, then here's a link to the full size image.
But why did it make such a big impression on me? Why did it lead to all that head shaking? Because it is one of those pictures that gives us a real sense of our place in the universe, and helps us appreciate the true size, and grandeur, of our own galaxy and the wider cosmos.
Look at that picture - I mean, really look at it, stare at it, stare into it, don't just flick your eyes over it and look away again. Now take a moment to consider what it is you're seeing. Each one of those countless dust mote, pollen grain dots is a star, an enormous, heaving, searing, blazing globe of incandescent gas that hangs in the balance between exploding and collapsing. Hoa amazing is that? Doesn't that thought alone just make you want to shake your own head in wonder?
How many can you see on that picture do you think? A million? Ten million? It doesn't really matter. What matters is that every single dot of light, every single pinprick of white, blue and gold on that image is a sun, and if even only every hundredth sun on that picture has planets - an extremely pessimistic view, considering what we now know about extrasolar planet formation - then you are still looking at thousands of "alien" solar systems right there.
Just take a moment to let that sink in. You are not just looking at a starfield, but at a portrait of an unknown number of solar systems. Right there, hidden in the pinprick glare of those stars there are almost certainly alien Jupiters, Saturns and Neptunes. Right there, before your eyes, lost in the glow of those countless distant suns, there are possibly worlds as lush and wet and alive as our own.
Now ask yourself.... how many Earths are there in that picture? How many ancient and wise, or young and brash civilisations are you looking at? How many alien Beethovens and Mozarts are composing and playing on the invisible worlds hidden inside that image? How many extraterrestrial Constables, Dalis and Turners are creating works of art within that glittering cloud? How many terrible wars are being fought, or being remembered with shame and regret? How many star-spanning Empires or Commonwealths or Federations have been created and thrived, or stagnated and fallen to pieces? How many beings are dreaming of the day when their science fiction becomes fact, and one of their kind goes down in their history books as the first to set foot on their world's satellite? How many beings are gazing up at their night sky in shock, awe and terror, watching a comet hurtling towards them, dooming them to extinction? How many sleek and silver starships are crossing the immense gulfs between some of those sequin suns, eager to open up trade with their neaighbours? How many dead worlds - once beautiful worlds of blue lakes, green forests and shining cities - spin silently through the void there, sterilised by nuclear war or worse? How many people on the planets going around the stars in that image are, even as you read these words, looking up at their world's night sky and wondering if there are any curious, intelligent creatures "Out there" too..?
... and that picture shows only a tiny, tiny area of the night sky. Now think how big the whole sky is... how many stars that is... Now imagine you're living 10,000 years from now, on one of the planets orbiting one of the stars on that picture, staring up at the heavens looking for that mythical star "Sol", but unable to find it in such a sun-crowded sky -
No. That could make your head explode. Just stare into that picture instead. Lose yourself in it. Explore it. Let your eyes roam up and downthe dark dust lanes silhouetted against the brighter background stars. Scan that foam of suns, in your mind trail your hand through that starry surf, feel the stars warm between your fingers...
...and allow yourself to feel wonder...
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12/19/07 5:09 PM