The Aged and the Ageless
This is a Bristlecone Pine encompassed by the Milky Way. One is the oldest individual species on earth, and the stars are the oldest thing we can see. For perspective, a human generation is estimated to be the average time between the birth of a mother and the average birth of her children, approximately 25 years. Bristlecone Pines are the longest living single multicellular species on earth, living up to and beyond 5,000 years. That is basically the length of recorded human history, 200 generations. The Milky Way above is estimated to be 13.21 billion years old, and the universe 13.77 billion years old, so the life of the Bristlecone Pines are but a blink of the eye. Since the light from the stars and galaxies can take millions or billions off years to reach us, when we look at the night sky we are looking back towards the beginning of time.
For more images like this please take a look at my website here .
Thanks for all the kind comments! Hope you enjoy! A big thank you to the wonderful Flickr family for all the support and encouragement! Cheers, Wayne
The Aged and the Ageless
This is a Bristlecone Pine encompassed by the Milky Way. One is the oldest individual species on earth, and the stars are the oldest thing we can see. For perspective, a human generation is estimated to be the average time between the birth of a mother and the average birth of her children, approximately 25 years. Bristlecone Pines are the longest living single multicellular species on earth, living up to and beyond 5,000 years. That is basically the length of recorded human history, 200 generations. The Milky Way above is estimated to be 13.21 billion years old, and the universe 13.77 billion years old, so the life of the Bristlecone Pines are but a blink of the eye. Since the light from the stars and galaxies can take millions or billions off years to reach us, when we look at the night sky we are looking back towards the beginning of time.
For more images like this please take a look at my website here .
Thanks for all the kind comments! Hope you enjoy! A big thank you to the wonderful Flickr family for all the support and encouragement! Cheers, Wayne