Even if the stars are way out there, distant and unreachable, we still feel and seek a deep connection with them. In the modern scientific attempt to study the skies, we identify the same longing for meaning that drove our ancestors to look up and worship the gods. Our amazing telescopes, such as the Very Large Telescope and the ALMA facility operated by the European Southern Observatory in Chile, or the cluster of amazing telescopes atop Mauna Kea in Hawaii, are testimonies to our modern urge to continue to decipher the heavens. We know the answers are there, waiting. The circle closes when we realize that we ourselves are made of star stuff, that the atoms that make up our bodies and everything around us came from stars that died over five billion years ago. To know this, to know that we can trace our material origins to the cosmos, is to bridge our existence, our individual and collective history, to the universe at large. We have discovered that we are molecular machines made of stars that can ponder our origins and destiny. That this is the worldview modern science brought about is nothing short of wonderful; and in doing so, it continues and gives meaning to our ancestors urges to understand and decipher the skies: they were looking up to find their origin; we looked up and found it.
Posted on: Thu, 21 Nov 2013 08:26:16 +0000
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