February 18: "Night Sky," Star Watcher, Wonder and Beauty

Billy Collins stargazes . . .

Night Sky

by:  Billy Collins

Lying on the beach

after so much wine and talk--

dippers everywhere.

I've been a star watcher most of my life.  From a very young age, I had a subscription to Astronomy magazine, each month losing my mind over all of the beautiful images of stars and planets and galaxies in its pages (although, compared to the images now available from the Webb Telescope, those pictures now seem like petroglyphs on cave walls).  Many a night I spent with my eyes pointed heavenward.

I sometimes thought I would become an astronomer or physicist.  That's how much I loved gazing through my telescope.  Of course, I didn't turn out to be the next Carl Sagan.  Many of my friends and family would say that my head is still in the clouds, but I'm chasing poems instead of comets now.

Not many stars are visible tonight.  For the past week, it's been pretty gray and snowy.  My daughter came over for dinner a couple nights ago, and we watched a couple episodes of The Crown together.  I remember summer nights with her when she was younger, watching for passing satellites and Perseid showers and lunar eclipses in our backyard.  When Neowise showed up a few years ago, she climbed Sugarloaf Mountain with me in the dark to see the comet from the summit.   

I don't think I'll ever outgrow my childhood fascination with astronomy.  Looking into the heavens is like time traveling:  all the light we see is between 4,000 and 70,000 years old.  Truly a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.  (Yes, astronomy also fostered my love of science fiction, as well.)  That means that, when you see some stars in the night sky, what you are seeing is light that originated at a time when Earth was going through an Ice Age due to the super eruption of the Toba Volcano.  That extinction event left only about 5000 human ancestors alive on the entire planet.  Everyone living now is descended from those 5000.  That blows my mind.

My knowledge of astronomy is rudimentary, at best.  I can't identify all the constellations spinning above me.  However, I can name all the planets.  I know that we are part of the Milky Way.  I also know that Earth is about 93 million miles away from the Sun.  Like I said, rudimentary knowledge.

But Saint Marty is all about chasing wonder and beauty each and every day.