Spaceship Earth

[Avatar]

I was driving home yesterday, thinking of the Watch, as I often do, stuck in traffic, gazing up at the incredible African winter sky, and for some reason I was just struck, as I occasionally am, by the vast magnitude of the universe, by the supreme improbability of our existence.

I thought of the limitless vacuum of space, hovering only a short distance above the bubble of air that supports this planet as it travels unceasingly through the galaxy, rotating at the speed of 1,670 km/ph, and revolving around the sun at 30 km/sec, an incredible 107,000 km/ph.

It was like a mini vortex of total perspective, and as usual, it just blew me away. The awesome unlikliness of everything coloured my perceptions for the rest of the day. I don't know why I'm posting this, or what, if anything, anybody has to say, but isn't it amazing? I know there's a thread for it, but the world is beautiful in truth.

--Avatar

[Loredoctor]

That is a nice, and impressive, thought.

[Avatar]

And that's a great avatar you're sporting LM.

--A

[Loredoctor]

Once again, we agree.

[Avatar]

We'll have to seek help my friend. But I'm afraid it may be too late.

--A

[High Lord Tolkien]

I sometimes get those sudden "deep thoughts" as well while driving.
But because I'm such a pessimist it's quite a seesaw process.

Usually it starts out when I think of the greatness of Mankind, our amazing intelligence, our closeness to God and how we must have a special role to play in the universe.

And then I think about the infinite vastness of the Cosmos, the enormous amount of time that has already been and the almost infinitely more time that will be, and that how somewhere in the middle of the Universe the speck of dirt that we call Earth is nothing more that a rotating petri dish of lucky bacteria with a few smart monkeys running around.

But usually when my mind wanders while driving I'm thinking about the ramifications of a Zombie outbreak like Dawn of the Dead 2004.

[Nathan]

The universe is amazing. Amazing to look at, amazing to live in, and amazing to think of.

Thanks Avatar.

[High Lord Tolkien]

Nathan, and everyone else, you might want to check out Alien Planet on the Discovery Channel.

discoverychannel.co.in/alienplanet/story/tv/index.shtml

It was really a lot of fun.
Very interesting too.
I could watch shows like this all the time.

There has to be SO MUCH out there.
It's a shame we won't live long enough to see the really good stuff.

[lurch]

...All of our " amazement" is based on the prejudice of Us, the Earth and its inhabitants, being singular. For all we know , that is the case. Some time waaaay in the future, a average human being, still on earth,may not be wonder struck by the view overhead, simply because, it will be common knowledge that Life isn't particular to one tiny planet orbiting a non-descript star located in the outer third of a galaxy that is but a mote of dust in a huge complex a cobwebbed Universe. Almost dailey new planets orbiting nearby stars are being " discovered",,and recently the first actual Photo of a planet orbiting a nearby star has been confirmed. So, we are on our way to discovering our place in our Galaxy's one subdivision.

...How unfortunate will they be? Those of the future , no longer brought to emotional amazement by the wonder of it all,,because they know..they know the neighbors are a bunch of routey m*#%^* F*#@%#* who don't turn it down after 10 pm..and on the otherside,,alls they want to do is preach to us about their God..The amazement reduced to the acceptance of the banal just mite give the final reason for the extinction of life in this Universe...........huh?.......anyway..Yes, there have been nites in the desert , when after hauling my telescopes out there,,I never set them up and instead spend the whole nite in lounger just looking up..Much amazement and fun..........MEL

[Lord Mhoram]

Avatar,

Excellent post.

lurch,

Indeed, our sense of uniqueness does contribute to this. However, if we find life I do feel that humans could be struck more by the vastness of Space and our seeming insignificance, don't you?

[lurch]

..Every coin has two sides..a Universe of Homer Simpsons anybody?
....yes, of course there is a dark humor about me of late. All this smoke in the air down here in arizona is clouding my thoughts. And Yes, the amazement should hold to infinite based on the long standing,,for everything we discover,,a thousand new questions are asked...MEL

[ChoChiyo]

Once I had a poster of the Milky Way Galaxy. There was a little red arrow toward the bottom with the words "You Are Here" printed above it.

Looking at that poster gave me that giddy feeling of the immenseness of the universe and my tiny presence within it--yet, that feeling didn't make me feel insignificant. I felt a strange stirring of JOY deep in my heart--that I could be a part--no matter how small--of something so grande.

<i>Luminous creatures are we....</i>

I got the same wild feeling of joy and the beauty of all creation today when I went to get into my car to get the mail, and the brightest blue dragon fly flew directly up to my face and hovered in front of me--it's body was neon blue and not much bigger than a few strands of hair--and its wings were translucent/opalescent--and I thought, "How AMAZING. This <i>bug</i> is a beautiful, magnificent marvel of creation.

Sometimes I think those moments of pure joy like that are a momentary connection with the divine--during which I can share, for an instant, his/her/its joy in his/her/its creations.

Like sharing eye contact or a smile across a crowded room with someone you love--you both feel the joy and warmth, and no one else even knows it happened.

Heh.

I am having a warm fuzzy day today.

Heh

[danlo]

Once I had a poster of the Milky Way Galaxy. There was a little red arrow toward the bottom with the words "You Are Here" printed above it.

you know if your gaze at that poster long enough a little green guy pops out and says DON'T PANIC!

[nuk]

I thought of the limitless vacuum of space, hovering only a short distance above the bubble of air that supports this planet as it travels unceasingly through the galaxy, rotating at the speed of 1,670 km/ph, and revolving around the sun at 30 km/sec, an incredible 107,000 km/ph.

--Avatar

Would you be less awed to know that down there in SA, you're only rotating at about 1450 km/h? And if you put it in terms of angular speed, fifteen degrees per hour seems pathetically slow...

[Nathan]

today when I went to get into my car to get the mail

You have to drive to the letterbox? How big is your house?

[ChoChiyo]

today when I went to get into my car to get the mail

You have to drive to the letterbox? How big is your house?

We don't have to-your-home delivery in my little end of the universe town. I have to drive down to the post office to get it. i could have walked, but i was expecting a LARGE and heavy package.

(Another reason I want to sell my house and move. I HATE going to the post office.)

[matrixman]

A few years ago I saw the IMAX film Blue Planet. The scenes looking straight down at Earth from the vantage point of the orbiting space shuttle left me awe-struck. Sure, I had probably seen such fly-by images before on TV, but to be able to see the surface of the Earth on the huge IMAX screen was something else entirely. The clarity was amazing; each puff of cloud in the atmosphere passing by was like a delicate cotton ball just a few inches away that you could reach down and grab, so strong was the tactile sensation. The subtle variations in the texture and colours of the seas and continents were mesmerizing. Gazing at the surface of the Earth in IMAX was like gazing at an exquisite 3D artwork -- Nature's artwork.

Looking at the spectacle of Earth on such a scale really helps to remind me what a grand and beautiful world it is that we call home in this corner of the cosmos. And so far, it's our only home. A toast to Spaceship Earth! (Er, though some of us still consider it a planet.)

[Fist and Faith]

Here's one of the most mind-boggling things I've ever seen:
imagecache2.allposters.com/images/SPA/7005.jpg
I know it's difficult to see (I imagine Edge knows how to see it bigger than I see it on my screen), but I have this poster, so I'll try to explain it. There are three different pictures. The first one is at the bottom, the rectangular box with the Big Dipper. What looks like a gray smudge above the Dipper is a square that they drew to show you what the telescope was aimed at. They chose that particular spot because, if you look there with the naked eye, it appears empty. No stars or anything.

When that square is magnified, you get the next picture. It's the square that is overlapped by most of the "e" in "The", and the "bble" in "Hubble". As you can see, there are LOTS of stars in what seemed to be a TINY, empty point of the sky. Actually, there are a dozen or so galaxies there, but you can't see that in this image. (At least I can't on my screen.) Now look a little below and right of center of that picture, and you see a chevron-shaped box. This chevron-shaped box can be covered by a grain of sand held at arm's length.

The large picture is, of course, that chevron-shaped box magnified. Here's a better look at it:
www.aoas.org/albums/album03/hubble_ultr ... .sized.jpg
Those are not stars - they are galaxies! There are a few stars there; the ones with the spiked look to them. The rest are galaxies. More than 1,500 galaxies are behind that grain of sand held up to the sky at arm's length!!!

HOW MANY GRAINS OF SAND DOES IT TAKE TO FILL THE SKY?!?!?!?!?!?!

[Edge]

I have no words for how mind-blowing that is... it's beyond extraordinary, and language can't do it justice!

Oh, and here are a couple of higher-res pics (heh, you know me far too well, Fisty ):

here

and here

[ChoChiyo]

3 ¶ When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, The moon and the stars, which You have ordained, 4 What is man that You are mindful of him, And the son of man that You visit him?

Psalm 8:3