"Put three grains of sand in a vast cathedral.."
"..and the cathedral will be more packed with sand, than space is with stars." (James Jeans)
Ants have made their home under the asphalt driveway apron next door, and after a couple of rain-free days, they have been busy rebuilding their little mounds. To me, they resembled a tiny constellation of galaxies in a sea of stars..
Or maybe somebody spilled a box of mini donuts..
But I loved the quote illustrating the vastness of space. It's hard to imagine, when we look up and there's not an inch of sky that's not filled with stars and galaxies. And since we can only see a tiny, tiny fraction the stars that are actually there, it's hard to imagine how stars don't crash into one another every night.
Hell, we poor humans can't even imagine how big our own solar system is, or how far it is between planets, even though we can see a few of them with our naked eye. How can we imagine how sparsely the universe must be populated?
We pretty much know for sure now that although there may be bacteria growing somewhere on the moons of Jupiter, or deep in crevices on Mars, there are no hidden civilizations on Venus, no parties being thrown among the rings of Saturn..
Oh well... It's probably just as well, with our immigration policy in disarray as it is right now. We have time to work things out before anyone lands on the White House lawn, demanding amnesty. Lots of time..
"Put three grains of sand in a vast cathedral.."
"..and the cathedral will be more packed with sand, than space is with stars." (James Jeans)
Ants have made their home under the asphalt driveway apron next door, and after a couple of rain-free days, they have been busy rebuilding their little mounds. To me, they resembled a tiny constellation of galaxies in a sea of stars..
Or maybe somebody spilled a box of mini donuts..
But I loved the quote illustrating the vastness of space. It's hard to imagine, when we look up and there's not an inch of sky that's not filled with stars and galaxies. And since we can only see a tiny, tiny fraction the stars that are actually there, it's hard to imagine how stars don't crash into one another every night.
Hell, we poor humans can't even imagine how big our own solar system is, or how far it is between planets, even though we can see a few of them with our naked eye. How can we imagine how sparsely the universe must be populated?
We pretty much know for sure now that although there may be bacteria growing somewhere on the moons of Jupiter, or deep in crevices on Mars, there are no hidden civilizations on Venus, no parties being thrown among the rings of Saturn..
Oh well... It's probably just as well, with our immigration policy in disarray as it is right now. We have time to work things out before anyone lands on the White House lawn, demanding amnesty. Lots of time..