Today’s blog
Lynn Murphy Mark
To Infinity…and Beyond
In my lifetime my view of the Universe has changed dramatically. I have a childhood memory from the 1950’s when we lived in Mexico City at an altitude of over 8,000 feet. Back in those days there was not an ugly smog cloud hiding the sky. I was a child, unable to sleep, standing on a balcony and looking up into a star studded sky. Somewhere I had learned that there is no end to the Universe, that Infinity is a real thing. I remember trying to grasp that concept with my child’s brain. Even today, with an experienced adult brain, I can’t stretch my thoughts that far.
Back in 1990, the Hubble telescope revealed majestic views of space 13 Billion light years away. Dear God. One light year is 5.8 trillion miles, times 13 billion light years. That’s too many zeros for me to count, and to think that something that ancient is just now revealing itself is mind blowing to me. The pictures from the Hubble telescope are breathtaking.
Now comes the James Webb Space Telescope, JWST.NASA says, “The James Webb Space Telescope is the world’s premier space science observatory. Webb will solve mysteries in our solar system, look beyond to distant worlds around other stars, and probe the mysterious structures and origins of our Universe and our place in it. Webb is an international program led by NASA with its partners ESA (European Space Agency) and CSA (Canadian Space Agency).”
It’s a thing of beauty that we can cooperate with other countries when it comes to Space. Too bad it’s not that easy when it comes to earthly matters, but, whatever. The thought that the universe has been here for gazillions of years makes our troubles seem petty, in the scheme of things. It is now completely clear to me that in that vastness of the “out there” are civilizations with life forms of their own. I no longer believe that we are alone with our array of live beings on this tiny pebble of a planet.
Our planet has been around for about 4.54 billion years. A cloud of gas and dust formed the planet when gravity drew everything together into a rock. Most of our solar system is about the same age, give or take 50 million years. Gravity pulled everything together, and gravity keeps us grounded to this day. Thank you Isaac Newton. In fact, thank you scientists everywhere for informing us as to the origins and development of life on earth. I came from an amoeba and so did you. Amoebas have no pecking order, so basically we are all equal. How about that? Without the star dust convening, none of us would be here. That gives me pause.
Water. Earth. Air. Fire. They are our origins, our common natural phenomena. A perfect storm of atoms combined to make the earliest life form, our first ancestors. The ocean is our first mother. Then someone brave ventured out of the water and crawled onto the land. From that came thousands of life forms over millions of years. Many lived and died for reasons not clear to us. Some beings decided to stop crawling and start walking and here we are today.
I read that Earth’s life expectancy is at least 1.5 billion years from today. Whether or not humanity will still be around is up for grabs and, essentially, up to us. I don’t know if we’re up to the task.