Reformers are apt to forget, in their reasoning, that the world is not made up entirely of the wicked and the hungry, there are persons hungry for the food of the mind, the wants of which are as imperious as those of the body…
Showing posts with label astronomy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label astronomy. Show all posts
Sunday, August 4, 2019
№ 403. Newton of Nantucket
Reformers are apt to forget, in their reasoning, that the world is not made up entirely of the wicked and the hungry, there are persons hungry for the food of the mind, the wants of which are as imperious as those of the body…
Saturday, December 15, 2018
№ 381. Forecast for Our Dust Mote
This excerpt from Sagan's book Pale Blue Dot was inspired by an image taken, at Sagan's suggestion, by Voyager 1 on February 14, 1990. As the spacecraft left our planetary neighborhood for the fringes of the solar system, engineers turned it around for one last look at its home planet. Voyager 1 was about 6.4 billion kilometers (4 billion miles) away, and approximately 32 degrees above the ecliptic plane, when it captured this portrait of our world. Caught in the center of scattered light rays (a result of taking the picture so close to the Sun), Earth appears as a tiny point of light, a crescent only 0.12 pixel in size.
"Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there--on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam."
--- Carl Sagan
"Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there--on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam."
--- Carl Sagan
Tuesday, January 29, 2013
№ 109. Post Christmas Musings
When the Magi have come to pay homage, offered their rich gifts and left, they set out to find their way home through a new route....
"What do we know about the Star that, according to Matthew’s Gospel, guided the Magi to Bethlehem to worship the baby Jesus? Was it just a feature that Matthew added to his narrative to convey a particular message to his readers, or was there an astronomical event to which he was referring? Vatican astronomer, Guy Consolmagno SJ presents various theories about the Star of Bethlehem… but should we be preoccupied with calculations and planetary conjunctions?" (Thinking Faith)
"What do we know about the Star that, according to Matthew’s Gospel, guided the Magi to Bethlehem to worship the baby Jesus? Was it just a feature that Matthew added to his narrative to convey a particular message to his readers, or was there an astronomical event to which he was referring? Vatican astronomer, Guy Consolmagno SJ presents various theories about the Star of Bethlehem… but should we be preoccupied with calculations and planetary conjunctions?" (Thinking Faith)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)