WEBVTT 00:00:07.939 --> 00:00:11.039 Howdy Star Gazers and welcome to this episode 00:00:11.039 --> 00:00:14.720 of Star Trails. My name is Drew and I'll be your 00:00:14.720 --> 00:00:17.339 guide to the night sky for the week of November 00:00:17.339 --> 00:00:21.839 the 16th through the 22nd. This week the moon 00:00:21.839 --> 00:00:24.820 leaves us for a few nights, revealing deep sky 00:00:24.820 --> 00:00:27.800 objects and clearing the way for dual meteor 00:00:27.800 --> 00:00:31.420 showers. We'll check in on Interstellar Object 00:00:31.420 --> 00:00:35.460 3i, and hopefully you caught the Northern Lights 00:00:35.460 --> 00:00:39.240 last week. Later in the show, we'll take a detour 00:00:39.240 --> 00:00:41.640 into something a little different. Something 00:00:41.640 --> 00:00:45.100 that's been on my mind lately. That feeling that 00:00:45.100 --> 00:00:47.600 creeps in when you look at the night sky and 00:00:47.600 --> 00:00:51.700 wrestle with its scale. Some people call it sad 00:00:51.700 --> 00:00:55.079 astronomy. It's about the loneliness of deep 00:00:55.079 --> 00:00:58.859 space, the weight of old light, and the knowledge 00:00:58.859 --> 00:01:01.780 that everything must one day come to an end. 00:01:03.079 --> 00:01:04.939 Whether you're joining us from the backyard, 00:01:05.319 --> 00:01:08.219 the balcony, or just your imagination, I'm glad 00:01:08.219 --> 00:01:11.159 you're here. So grab a comfortable spot and let's 00:01:11.159 --> 00:01:15.840 get started. Before we get into the episode, 00:01:15.840 --> 00:01:18.780 we need to talk about the Northern Lights, because 00:01:18.780 --> 00:01:21.640 last week the Sun was once again putting on a 00:01:21.640 --> 00:01:24.420 show. If you were like me, you were glued to 00:01:24.420 --> 00:01:27.359 social media feeds watching folks post images 00:01:27.359 --> 00:01:32.299 of last Tuesday's low -latitude aurora. It wasn't 00:01:32.299 --> 00:01:35.400 quite as dramatic as the outburst last spring, 00:01:35.579 --> 00:01:38.640 at least not in my neck of the woods. All the 00:01:38.640 --> 00:01:41.980 images I saw locally were mostly just a red sky 00:01:41.980 --> 00:01:45.480 glow, those higher altitude aurora that I find 00:01:45.480 --> 00:01:48.840 particularly vexing to see. Owing to both my 00:01:48.840 --> 00:01:52.099 own red -green color blindness and the way our 00:01:52.099 --> 00:01:55.819 eyes work, color is hard to see in dim conditions. 00:01:56.480 --> 00:01:59.900 That's why your camera can often see aurora better 00:01:59.900 --> 00:02:03.760 than our eyes can. I didn't try to photograph 00:02:03.760 --> 00:02:06.879 it myself, but I enjoyed seeing everyone else's 00:02:06.879 --> 00:02:10.599 efforts. Another coronal mass ejection blasted 00:02:10.599 --> 00:02:13.939 Earth the following day, Wednesday, and initial 00:02:13.939 --> 00:02:17.060 reports said we'd get aurora even farther south. 00:02:17.289 --> 00:02:20.090 By the time nightfall arrived, the prediction 00:02:20.090 --> 00:02:22.889 had shifted and, as far as I know, there were 00:02:22.889 --> 00:02:26.550 no northern lights down south on that day. Too 00:02:26.550 --> 00:02:29.289 bad, because I had my camera and tripod loaded 00:02:29.289 --> 00:02:32.949 up in a road trip to a dark site planned. If 00:02:32.949 --> 00:02:35.169 some of you caught photos of the light show, 00:02:35.509 --> 00:02:39.330 visit starrtrails .show and use the contact form 00:02:39.330 --> 00:02:42.009 there to let me know what you saw. I'd love to 00:02:42.009 --> 00:02:52.139 see what it looked like in your backyard. If 00:02:52.139 --> 00:02:54.580 you've been following any space news lately, 00:02:54.879 --> 00:02:57.240 you may have already heard that the excitement 00:02:57.240 --> 00:03:01.560 over interstellar object 3I Atlas may be coming 00:03:01.560 --> 00:03:04.699 to an end, as it looks like the object has broken 00:03:04.699 --> 00:03:08.860 up during its close approach to the Sun. 3I Atlas 00:03:08.860 --> 00:03:12.039 is only the third confirmed interstellar object 00:03:12.039 --> 00:03:14.439 to drift through our solar system, following 00:03:14.439 --> 00:03:18.719 Oumuamua, that's one eye, and Comet Borisov, 00:03:18.939 --> 00:03:22.319 two eye. What makes ATLAS intriguing is that 00:03:22.319 --> 00:03:26.379 unlike Oumuamua's enigmatic pancake or cigar 00:03:26.379 --> 00:03:30.199 -like geometry, ATLAS presented as more of a 00:03:30.199 --> 00:03:34.020 conventional comet, a nucleus with a modest coma. 00:03:34.960 --> 00:03:37.319 Over the last several weeks, astronomers have 00:03:37.319 --> 00:03:40.780 reported asymmetric brightening, a diffuse tail 00:03:40.780 --> 00:03:44.400 inconsistent with a single intact nucleus, and 00:03:44.400 --> 00:03:47.479 a slight shift in the object's photometric center. 00:03:47.710 --> 00:03:50.849 all of which hint that Atlas might be breaking 00:03:50.849 --> 00:03:55.189 up, shedding fragments as it approaches perihelion. 00:03:55.530 --> 00:03:58.610 Interstellar comets have hard lives. They spend 00:03:58.610 --> 00:04:01.750 millions of years adrift in space where the volatile 00:04:01.750 --> 00:04:04.650 ices that hold them together become fragile, 00:04:05.050 --> 00:04:08.090 desiccated, and riddled with microfractures. 00:04:08.750 --> 00:04:11.490 When such an object suddenly gets slammed with 00:04:11.490 --> 00:04:15.409 the full solar onslaught, heating tidal forces, 00:04:15.710 --> 00:04:18.930 and radiation, those ancient weaknesses can give 00:04:18.930 --> 00:04:23.870 way. If Atlas is fragmenting, it's probably because 00:04:23.870 --> 00:04:27.189 sunlight is turning its interior gases back into 00:04:27.189 --> 00:04:30.990 pressure, popping it apart like a cosmic blister. 00:04:31.689 --> 00:04:34.050 Observatories tracking it have suggested either 00:04:34.050 --> 00:04:36.949 multiple small fragments or a single nucleus 00:04:36.949 --> 00:04:40.649 that's beginning to shed material in uneven spurts, 00:04:40.670 --> 00:04:45.089 which creates that ghostly broadened tail. Break 00:04:45.089 --> 00:04:48.050 up or not, Atlas is writing its autobiography 00:04:48.050 --> 00:04:51.990 in real time, and we get to read it. Fragmenting 00:04:51.990 --> 00:04:54.709 comets reveal their internal structure, the density, 00:04:54.910 --> 00:04:57.930 the layering, the mix of ice and dust, better 00:04:57.930 --> 00:05:02.209 than any intact pass ever could. And in Atlas's 00:05:02.209 --> 00:05:05.009 case, everything we learn is a direct sample 00:05:05.009 --> 00:05:08.870 of another star system. Even if Atlas dies on 00:05:08.870 --> 00:05:11.750 approach, the disintegration itself becomes the 00:05:11.750 --> 00:05:23.350 science. The sky is a polite guest this week. 00:05:23.509 --> 00:05:27.170 No lunar glare, no drama, just clean darkness 00:05:27.170 --> 00:05:30.370 for deep sky enthusiasts and astrophotographers. 00:05:31.230 --> 00:05:33.930 We're sitting in a sweet spot on the lunar calendar. 00:05:34.250 --> 00:05:37.129 The moon is fading into a waning crescent tonight, 00:05:37.370 --> 00:05:40.230 shrinking each morning, and it's a new moon by 00:05:40.230 --> 00:05:43.550 the 20th. That means we get a midweek window 00:05:43.550 --> 00:05:46.850 of truly dark skies, the kind of darkness that 00:05:46.850 --> 00:05:50.810 makes the dim stuff pop. By the 22nd, there's 00:05:50.810 --> 00:05:53.769 the barest sliver of a waxing crescent after 00:05:53.769 --> 00:05:57.170 sunset, but it's too low and too subtle to wash 00:05:57.170 --> 00:06:00.930 anything out. The planets are arranged in a neat 00:06:00.930 --> 00:06:03.730 little lineup this week. Saturn hangs in the 00:06:03.730 --> 00:06:07.329 southwest after sunset, mellow, steady, and easy 00:06:07.329 --> 00:06:10.889 to pick out. Jupiter rises earlier each night 00:06:10.889 --> 00:06:14.129 and dominates the late evening sky, bright enough 00:06:14.129 --> 00:06:17.649 to stop you in your tracks. And very early in 00:06:17.649 --> 00:06:21.009 the morning, especially by the 21st and 22nd, 00:06:21.230 --> 00:06:24.329 Mercury begins its climb into the pre -dawn sky. 00:06:24.889 --> 00:06:28.029 It's low, it's fleeting, and the horizon needs 00:06:28.029 --> 00:06:31.870 to be clear, but it's there. Venus is technically 00:06:31.870 --> 00:06:34.990 in the dawn too, but so low and faint this month 00:06:34.990 --> 00:06:38.790 that it's not worth chasing. With the moon out 00:06:38.790 --> 00:06:41.750 of the way, the constellations take center stage. 00:06:42.449 --> 00:06:45.160 Cassiopeia is high in the northeast. And right 00:06:45.160 --> 00:06:48.220 below it sits Perseus, carrying the gorgeous 00:06:48.220 --> 00:06:52.060 double cluster, a binocular object that is always 00:06:52.060 --> 00:06:55.879 a crowd pleaser. And in the east, the winter 00:06:55.879 --> 00:06:59.360 stars Capella, Aldebaran, and the first hints 00:06:59.360 --> 00:07:02.500 of Orion's belt are beginning to claim the late 00:07:02.500 --> 00:07:06.060 night sky. Every night of November is an inch 00:07:06.060 --> 00:07:10.139 closer to full wintertime brilliance. Now for 00:07:10.139 --> 00:07:13.589 the really fun stuff, meteor activity. We're 00:07:13.589 --> 00:07:16.569 nearing the peaks of two November showers, and 00:07:16.569 --> 00:07:20.050 both benefit from the new moon darkness. First 00:07:20.050 --> 00:07:23.350 are the Leonids, famous for their historic storms, 00:07:23.870 --> 00:07:26.529 though this year they're modest, maybe a handful 00:07:26.529 --> 00:07:30.069 per hour. They leave fast, bright streaks, and 00:07:30.069 --> 00:07:32.430 with the moon gone, they stand out beautifully. 00:07:33.490 --> 00:07:36.769 The Leonids peak around the 17th and 18th, so 00:07:36.769 --> 00:07:38.850 the early part of the week is the best time to 00:07:38.850 --> 00:07:42.069 catch them. Then, later in the week, the Alpha 00:07:42.069 --> 00:07:45.750 monoceratids get a brief mention. They're normally 00:07:45.750 --> 00:07:48.410 minor, but they're unpredictable, and every so 00:07:48.410 --> 00:07:50.910 often they produce a sudden spike of activity. 00:07:51.850 --> 00:07:54.589 With the dark skies, it should be easy to catch 00:07:54.589 --> 00:07:57.769 a meteor or two, leaving a quick autograph across 00:07:57.769 --> 00:08:02.230 the sky. Coming up, does the night sky make you 00:08:02.230 --> 00:08:05.490 sad? Do you find yourself questioning your own 00:08:05.490 --> 00:08:08.810 existence as you ponder the scale of the universe? 00:08:09.259 --> 00:08:12.740 Does the eventual heat death of the cosmos make 00:08:12.740 --> 00:08:16.839 you uneasy? If so, you're not alone. This is 00:08:16.839 --> 00:08:21.199 the realm of sad astronomy, and it's a real phenomenon. 00:08:22.360 --> 00:08:25.019 After the break, we're going to have a cosmic 00:08:25.019 --> 00:08:28.779 meditation of sorts on distance, on loss, on 00:08:28.779 --> 00:08:31.639 why we look up even when the universe doesn't 00:08:31.639 --> 00:08:35.809 look back. Think of it as a melancholy stretch 00:08:35.809 --> 00:08:39.889 of road between curiosity and hard science. It 00:08:39.889 --> 00:08:43.029 sounds cold, but a promise will end in a warm 00:08:43.029 --> 00:08:46.870 place. I'll take you there after the break. Stay 00:08:46.870 --> 00:09:04.740 with us. Welcome back. Astronomy is often described 00:09:04.740 --> 00:09:09.019 as a science of wonder, stars, nebula, the promise 00:09:09.019 --> 00:09:12.980 of distant worlds. But behind that wonder, there's 00:09:12.980 --> 00:09:16.700 another feeling, harder to name. It's the silence 00:09:16.700 --> 00:09:20.600 after the signal fades. It's the awareness that 00:09:20.600 --> 00:09:25.059 most of what we see is already gone. That's sad 00:09:25.059 --> 00:09:28.840 astronomy. It's the emotional gravity that comes 00:09:28.840 --> 00:09:32.769 from realizing how brief we are. and how magnificent 00:09:32.769 --> 00:09:44.149 the universe remains without us. Sad astronomy 00:09:44.149 --> 00:09:48.090 isn't hopeless, it's honest, and honesty, like 00:09:48.090 --> 00:09:52.470 starlight, travels a long way. Astronomy may 00:09:52.470 --> 00:09:55.409 very well be the study of everything that's already 00:09:55.409 --> 00:09:59.080 gone. Every photon we catch in our telescopes 00:09:59.080 --> 00:10:02.840 left its home before any of us were born. Some 00:10:02.840 --> 00:10:06.519 of those stars don't even exist anymore. Space 00:10:06.519 --> 00:10:09.840 isn't so much a place as it's a memory stretched 00:10:09.840 --> 00:10:15.940 across time. For the past few episodes, we've 00:10:15.940 --> 00:10:18.980 been knee -deep in data, models, probabilities, 00:10:19.320 --> 00:10:23.059 and even quantum computing. Tonight, I just want 00:10:23.059 --> 00:10:25.960 to step back and look at what all of it means, 00:10:26.500 --> 00:10:30.000 even if the beauty hurts a little. Some of you 00:10:30.000 --> 00:10:33.019 may recall we didn't have any episodes back in 00:10:33.019 --> 00:10:36.440 September. Part of that was simply the slings 00:10:36.440 --> 00:10:39.919 and arrows of life, but it was mostly because 00:10:39.919 --> 00:10:42.720 I had to take some weeks to reflect on my own 00:10:42.720 --> 00:10:45.679 tiny place in the universe, having just reached 00:10:45.679 --> 00:10:50.049 that gloomy age of 50. I'm sure you've noticed 00:10:50.049 --> 00:10:53.110 our topics lately have been a little meta, these 00:10:53.110 --> 00:10:57.330 large -scale ideas about our own existence. You 00:10:57.330 --> 00:11:00.710 could argue this podcast has been in sad astronomy 00:11:00.710 --> 00:11:05.129 mode now for the past few weeks. I'd never even 00:11:05.129 --> 00:11:07.850 heard the term sad astronomy until recently, 00:11:07.929 --> 00:11:11.169 but it's real. It's generally the study of how 00:11:11.169 --> 00:11:15.190 things end, the deaths of stars, galaxies, and 00:11:15.190 --> 00:11:18.559 the universe itself. But it also deals with how 00:11:18.559 --> 00:11:22.320 we feel when we look up at night. The vastness 00:11:22.320 --> 00:11:26.399 that makes us feel alone and tiny. The isolation 00:11:26.399 --> 00:11:29.840 we experience as specialists in a hobby where 00:11:29.840 --> 00:11:33.440 we often find ourselves physically alone, under 00:11:33.440 --> 00:11:37.320 a dark sky in the cold, chasing meaning and truth 00:11:37.320 --> 00:11:40.519 through the chromatic aberrations of eyepieces, 00:11:40.919 --> 00:11:43.940 fogging lenses, and slightly misaligned mirrors. 00:11:45.480 --> 00:11:49.799 Many, many people experience sadness in astronomy. 00:11:50.320 --> 00:11:53.320 Just searching for the term sad astronomy reveals 00:11:53.320 --> 00:11:56.580 endless forums and websites where observers wonder 00:11:56.580 --> 00:11:59.659 why space makes them feel dread and despair. 00:12:00.759 --> 00:12:04.080 So in this episode, I want to share a kind of 00:12:04.080 --> 00:12:08.460 essay told in five parts. Five brief reflections 00:12:08.460 --> 00:12:12.750 about distance, death, and endurance. and each 00:12:12.750 --> 00:12:15.590 one is a different way of hearing the universe's 00:12:15.590 --> 00:12:36.350 song. A telescope is essentially a time machine. 00:12:36.649 --> 00:12:40.259 When we look outward, we look backward. the light 00:12:40.259 --> 00:12:42.980 from Andromeda began its journey two and a half 00:12:42.980 --> 00:12:46.399 million years ago, long before the first humans 00:12:46.399 --> 00:12:50.419 carved symbols in stone. Even the light from 00:12:50.419 --> 00:12:54.200 our sun is eight minutes old, a gentle delay 00:12:54.200 --> 00:12:57.259 between cause and effect, presence and memory. 00:12:58.700 --> 00:13:01.279 Astronomy is the only science where the past 00:13:01.279 --> 00:13:04.299 never stops arriving, and the deeper we peer, 00:13:04.559 --> 00:13:08.740 the lonelier it becomes. The cosmos is expanding, 00:13:09.179 --> 00:13:13.340 galaxies are slipping away beyond reach. Someday, 00:13:13.580 --> 00:13:16.580 the universe will outgrow our ability to see 00:13:16.580 --> 00:13:19.940 it. What will we do when the sky goes dark, not 00:13:19.940 --> 00:13:24.539 from clouds, but from time itself? Light has 00:13:24.539 --> 00:13:27.539 a speed limit, and beyond that line, there's 00:13:27.539 --> 00:13:32.000 only silence. Science fiction has tried to translate 00:13:32.000 --> 00:13:36.450 that silence for us. In the film Contact, Jodie 00:13:36.450 --> 00:13:39.889 Foster listens for a signal, not just from aliens, 00:13:40.129 --> 00:13:44.789 but from meaning itself. In Interstellar, Matthew 00:13:44.789 --> 00:13:48.169 McConaughey crosses the galaxy chasing love and 00:13:48.169 --> 00:13:52.389 time, and Anne Hathaway's character, in a monologue 00:13:52.389 --> 00:13:55.990 I once found very cringey, insists that love 00:13:55.990 --> 00:13:58.769 is the one thing that transcends dimensions. 00:14:03.969 --> 00:14:10.269 yet understand maybe it's some evidence some 00:14:10.269 --> 00:14:13.509 Artifact of a higher dimension that we can't 00:14:13.509 --> 00:14:17.710 consciously perceive Love is the one thing we're 00:14:17.710 --> 00:14:19.730 capable of perceiving that transcends dimensions 00:14:19.730 --> 00:14:24.610 of time and space Carl Sagan said it better for 00:14:24.610 --> 00:14:28.629 small creatures such as we the vastness is bearable 00:14:28.629 --> 00:14:32.870 only through love Not as a force of nature, but 00:14:32.870 --> 00:14:36.690 as a human survival instinct. We invent connections 00:14:36.690 --> 00:14:41.450 to make the infinite feel habitable. These films 00:14:41.450 --> 00:14:44.269 are meditations on cosmic loneliness wrapped 00:14:44.269 --> 00:14:46.970 in the search for meaning. And those aren't the 00:14:46.970 --> 00:14:50.629 only ones. There's Solaris, the prototype for 00:14:50.629 --> 00:14:55.350 cosmic loneliness. Of course, 2001, A Space Odyssey. 00:14:55.710 --> 00:14:59.330 existential, indifferent, and yet simultaneously 00:14:59.330 --> 00:15:02.649 glorifying the evolution of man as he takes his 00:15:02.649 --> 00:15:07.470 first baby steps into deep space. And add Astra, 00:15:07.789 --> 00:15:10.450 which tells us the further out we journey, the 00:15:10.450 --> 00:15:27.909 more alone we are. A nebula is a graveyard that 00:15:27.909 --> 00:15:31.289 glows. It's the ashes of a star, still burning 00:15:31.289 --> 00:15:34.909 with borrowed light. Every atom of carbon in 00:15:34.909 --> 00:15:37.610 our bodies was made in one of those funerals. 00:15:38.029 --> 00:15:42.850 We are literally the residue of dying suns. When 00:15:42.850 --> 00:15:45.830 I look through my telescope or photograph something 00:15:45.830 --> 00:15:49.389 like the Crab Nebula, I'm watching the aftermath 00:15:49.389 --> 00:15:52.269 of a death that happened before there were pyramids. 00:15:52.779 --> 00:15:57.000 The light just took this long to reach us. Sad 00:15:57.000 --> 00:16:00.879 astronomy means standing in that afterglow, seeing 00:16:00.879 --> 00:16:04.600 beauty born from catastrophe, and realizing that's 00:16:04.600 --> 00:16:08.759 also what it means to be alive. Eventually, no 00:16:08.759 --> 00:16:11.720 new stars will form, the universe will suffer 00:16:11.720 --> 00:16:14.799 heat death, and all warmth and structure will 00:16:14.799 --> 00:16:20.480 fade. Right now, 99 .9 % of the universe is actually 00:16:20.480 --> 00:16:24.100 empty. And light's speed limit means even if 00:16:24.100 --> 00:16:28.220 we could travel that fast, that 1 % will be largely 00:16:28.220 --> 00:16:43.639 unreachable. We've always answered the universe's 00:16:43.639 --> 00:16:48.480 silence with noise. In 1974, we sent the Arecibo 00:16:48.480 --> 00:16:51.779 message toward a distant star cluster, a digital 00:16:51.779 --> 00:16:54.940 portrait of who we are, transmitted once, never 00:16:54.940 --> 00:16:59.440 to be repeated. Two spacecraft, Voyagers 1 and 00:16:59.440 --> 00:17:02.600 2, carry golden records with the sound of Earth, 00:17:02.960 --> 00:17:06.599 thunder, birds, Beethoven, and a human heartbeat. 00:17:07.960 --> 00:17:11.059 They've now left the solar system, still whispering 00:17:11.059 --> 00:17:15.049 faint radio signals back home. Chances are, they'll 00:17:15.049 --> 00:17:18.529 outlive every city we've built. Someday, some 00:17:18.529 --> 00:17:22.089 distant traveler, or perhaps no one, may find 00:17:22.089 --> 00:17:26.410 them. We send these messages not because we expect 00:17:26.410 --> 00:17:29.869 an answer, but because silence is unbearable. 00:17:30.529 --> 00:17:33.809 Even Opportunity, the Mars rover, left us a kind 00:17:33.809 --> 00:17:37.089 of message. My battery is low, and it's getting 00:17:37.089 --> 00:17:41.519 dark. That line wasn't in its code. It was in 00:17:41.519 --> 00:17:44.740 ours We made it poetic because we couldn't stand 00:17:44.740 --> 00:17:48.299 the idea of something we built Dying alone on 00:17:48.299 --> 00:18:01.079 a faraway planet Part four entropy and memory 00:18:01.079 --> 00:18:07.019 Entropy is the universe's tendency toward disorder 00:18:07.160 --> 00:18:10.200 But that phrase doesn't quite capture the scale 00:18:10.200 --> 00:18:17.180 of it. Entropy is the quiet drift of every system 00:18:17.180 --> 00:18:21.880 from stars to spacecraft toward breakdown. Heat 00:18:21.880 --> 00:18:26.400 spreads out, metal fatigues, orbits decay, temperature 00:18:26.400 --> 00:18:28.779 differences flatten out until everything reaches 00:18:28.779 --> 00:18:33.599 the same cold final equilibrium. It's inevitability. 00:18:33.880 --> 00:18:37.519 A star cools, a planet, like Mars for instance, 00:18:37.799 --> 00:18:48.380 loses its atmosphere. Entropy is the cost of 00:18:48.380 --> 00:18:51.599 structure in a universe that prefers smoothness 00:18:51.599 --> 00:18:56.000 over complexity. It's the universe's quiet metronome. 00:18:56.089 --> 00:18:59.130 It ticks in the cooling of stars, the fading 00:18:59.130 --> 00:19:02.569 of orbits, and the corrosion of mirrors and old 00:19:02.569 --> 00:19:07.269 observatories. Even Arecibo's great dish, once 00:19:07.269 --> 00:19:10.549 the ear of our planet, lies broken in the jungle 00:19:10.549 --> 00:19:14.630 now, listening to nothing. Space exploration, 00:19:14.869 --> 00:19:18.589 while not astronomy per se, must conform to entropy. 00:19:19.490 --> 00:19:21.789 Where were you and Challenger exploded after 00:19:21.789 --> 00:19:26.319 liftoff in 1986? I was in the fifth grade, and 00:19:26.319 --> 00:19:29.240 that tragedy was a touchstone for my generation. 00:19:30.279 --> 00:19:32.859 I remember seeing the shuttle Columbia on its 00:19:32.859 --> 00:19:35.880 first launch in 1981 when I was in preschool. 00:19:36.740 --> 00:19:39.460 Twenty years later, as a journalist, I wrote 00:19:39.460 --> 00:19:43.180 about its destruction over Texas. And I hesitate 00:19:43.180 --> 00:19:46.680 to even mention Leica, the dog sent into space 00:19:46.680 --> 00:19:51.380 by the Soviets in 1957. Her one -way trip into 00:19:51.380 --> 00:19:55.200 orbit is just too sad for a retelling. Yet, it's 00:19:55.200 --> 00:20:02.700 entropy at work. Without decay, there would be 00:20:02.700 --> 00:20:07.140 no change, no color, no sound. Every photograph 00:20:07.140 --> 00:20:10.420 I take is a small rebellion against that, a way 00:20:10.420 --> 00:20:14.500 of saying this existed once. But without death, 00:20:14.779 --> 00:20:18.519 there's no light. We can't stop the universe 00:20:18.519 --> 00:20:21.420 from unraveling, but we can mark the pattern 00:20:21.420 --> 00:20:35.349 in its threads. Part five the warm horizon Not 00:20:35.349 --> 00:20:39.329 every ending is tragic light still travels the 00:20:39.329 --> 00:20:42.029 photons that left a star a billion years ago 00:20:42.029 --> 00:20:45.289 have finally arrived to meet your eye your camera 00:20:45.289 --> 00:20:50.529 and your curiosity Astronauts talk about something 00:20:50.529 --> 00:20:53.829 called the overview effect that moment when you 00:20:53.829 --> 00:20:57.269 see Earth floating in the black. Not on a screen, 00:20:57.349 --> 00:20:59.990 not through a photograph, but with your own eyes. 00:21:00.809 --> 00:21:04.549 From orbit, borders disappear, conflicts shrink, 00:21:04.990 --> 00:21:08.309 the noise of daily life drops away, and all that's 00:21:08.309 --> 00:21:11.349 left is a thin, trembling line of atmosphere, 00:21:11.750 --> 00:21:15.309 keeping every one of us alive. Many astronauts 00:21:15.309 --> 00:21:19.089 describe an unexpected wave of emotion, grief, 00:21:19.329 --> 00:21:22.690 awe, protectiveness, A kind of fierce tenderness 00:21:22.690 --> 00:21:25.470 for a world they never realized was so fragile. 00:21:26.390 --> 00:21:29.829 Some say it rewired them forever. Seeing Earth 00:21:29.829 --> 00:21:32.670 from that distance didn't make them feel small. 00:21:33.049 --> 00:21:37.029 It made them feel connected. The overview effect 00:21:37.029 --> 00:21:40.690 is the counterpoint to sad astronomy. While most 00:21:40.690 --> 00:21:43.309 of us won't be venturing into space anytime soon, 00:21:43.430 --> 00:21:47.289 we can gaze at the pale blue dot photo. Voyagers 00:21:47.289 --> 00:21:50.549 last look back at Earth. Smaller than a pixel, 00:21:50.700 --> 00:21:54.900 suspended in a sunbeam. All of human experience 00:21:54.900 --> 00:21:58.240 compressed into an inconsequential dot floating 00:21:58.240 --> 00:22:03.279 in a void. Maybe sad astronomy isn't really sad. 00:22:03.559 --> 00:22:06.559 Maybe it's gratitude stretched across the dark. 00:22:07.099 --> 00:22:09.640 Because every time we look up, we become part 00:22:09.640 --> 00:22:13.099 of the same equation that made the stars. We're 00:22:13.099 --> 00:22:17.130 not outside the story. We are the story. And 00:22:17.130 --> 00:22:21.150 perhaps that's what movies like Contact and Interstellar 00:22:21.150 --> 00:22:24.349 were trying to tell us. That even when the cosmos 00:22:24.349 --> 00:22:27.349 is indifferent, connection gives it meaning. 00:22:28.869 --> 00:22:32.470 Love, curiosity, memory, these aren't cosmic 00:22:32.470 --> 00:22:36.410 forces, they're human ones. In a universe that 00:22:36.410 --> 00:22:40.970 forgets, we remember. And that's our small rebellion. 00:22:55.559 --> 00:22:58.039 If you found this episode interesting, please 00:22:58.039 --> 00:23:00.480 share it with a friend who might enjoy it. The 00:23:00.480 --> 00:23:03.160 easiest way to do that is by sending folks to 00:23:03.160 --> 00:23:07.200 our website, StarTrails .Show. And if you want 00:23:07.200 --> 00:23:09.460 to support the show, use the link on the site 00:23:09.460 --> 00:23:13.220 to buy me a coffee. It really helps. Be sure 00:23:13.220 --> 00:23:16.359 to follow Star Trails on Blue Sky and YouTube. 00:23:16.680 --> 00:23:19.420 Links are in the show notes. Until we meet again 00:23:19.420 --> 00:23:22.119 beneath the stars, clear skies, everyone.