| November 1st |
Beauty and awe in the Astronomer Universe
...and I have felt a presence that disturbs me with the joy of elevated thoughts, a sense sublime, of something far more deeply interfused, whose dwelling is the light of setting suns."
- William Wordsworth - "Above Tintern Abbey"
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| November 8th |
The New Solar System
...Rovers on Mars Cassini at Saturn and Trans Plutonian Planets "Given only the ships and right sails for the heavenly space, there will also be men unafraid of the terrible distances."
- Kepler, to Galileo
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| November 15th |
Extinctions
...Playing Russian roulette with earth crossing comets and asteroids (Getting ready for Apophis in 2036) "The angels all were singing out of tune and hoarse with having littler else to do, excepting to wind up the sun and the moon, or curb a runaway star or two, or wild coat of a comet, which too soon broke out of bounds o'er the ethereal blue, splitting some planet with its beautiful tail as boats are sometimes by a wanton whale Lord Byron."
- The Vision of Judgment
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| November 22nd |
We are All Stardust
"Man is related inextricably to all reality...known and unknowable.....consider plankton, a shimmering phosphorescence in the sea, and the spinning planets and the expanding universe,... all bound together by the elastic thread of time. It is advisable to look from the tide pool to the stars and back to the tide pool again."
- John Steinbeck - "The Log from the Sea of Cortez"
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| November 29th |
The Black Taj
...Discovery of Dark Matter and Dark Energy "You know", said Post, and his voice sounded unreal, as voices are likely to do after a long pause in and utterly silent spot, "the sky here is very strange. I often have the sensation when to look up at it that it's a solid thing up there, protecting us from what's behind." kit shuddered slightly as she said "From what's behind?" "Yes" "But what is behind?" Nothing, I suppose, just darkness. Absolute night.
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| December 6th |
Are We Alone?
...Exo-planet discoveries, SETI, and Reflections on the Rise of Consciousness "The fact that this chain of life existed in the black cold of the deep sea and was utterly independent of sunlight....previously thought to be the font of all Earth's life...has startling ramifications. If life could flourish there, nurtured by a complex chemical process based on geothermal heat, then life could exist under similar conditions on planets far removed from the nurturing light of our parent star, the Sun."
- Robert Ballard - "Explorations"
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