Awe

Happy Carl Sagan Day

"For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring."
Carl Sagan

Bad Universe

So one of my favorite astronomers, yes I have more than one favorite astronomer, appears that he is getting a series based on his book and blog.

Very cool! I might have to actually get something besides broadcast TV.

Awesome

The White Mountain from charles on Vimeo.

Let the Robots Do It

I am a space nut. As a kid I built models of the Apollo lunar landers. I was too young to remember the Apollo project first hand, but I do remember Skylab and the Apollo/Soyux missions. I even got permission from my folks to skip school and watch the first shuttle launch and landing. I also remember quite vividly the first pictures sent back from the surface of Mars by the Viking lander. I remember thinking how lucky I was to grow up in a time when the Voyager’s grand tour was even possible. I watched the first raw image returns from the Cassini missions live as they came in from Saturn in 2004. Every day I check multiple Astronomy websites and I make a conscious point to look up in the mornings as I walk to the car and see if I can locate the planets that are currently visible.

So with this introduction you might find it odd that I applaud the announcement to all but kill NASA’s manned space flight program. I don’t have a problem with manned space flight in particular. We just need to look at it honestly and objectively and see what kind of return on our investment we’ve gotten on manned space flight when compared to robotic missions.

While Voyager was taking pictures of Jupiter and all its moons Apollo Soyux was just trying to see if we could get Russians and American’s to shake hands. While Cassini Huygens was taking the best shots of Saturn ever manned missions were trying to figure out how to not burn up another shuttle during re-entry. While Mars Pathfinder more than doubles its life expectancy and continues to send back data from Mars manned missions are trying to figure out how to rescue a shuttle if tiles get damaged on the shuttle. While Hubble continues each day to amaze us with images from the extremes of the universe the ISS is trying to figure out how astronauts can process their own urine and re-drink it. I could go on and on with these examples but my only point is that while the robots are doing real research and doing a bang up job in the process the manned missions are quite literally doing little more than trying to figure out how to stay alive.

I’m not denying the political chest thumping advantage of being able to say we are the only country that has ever set foot on the moon. But let’s not deny that that’s all that it really was. The science was at best and afterthought. We only actually put one scientist up there and he was bumped up to an earlier mission when we realized that we were going to be discontinuing the program. If we feel we need to thump our chest again to show how great America is let’s do it after we’ve taken care of some issues much closer to home. But let’s just not disguise it as a scientific pursuit.

A few years ago when Constellation and Orion were announced I was more than a little annoyed. Why were we spending so much money to rebuild 70’s era technology to do something that we’d already done? So I’m actually glad that the current budget is choosing to cut it. Let Richard Branson, Burt Rutan and the rest of the private sector spend their own money to figure out how to make a toilet that functions in zero-G. Let’s invest our tax dollars into something based on science and with a cost effective return on our tax investment. The robots have proven that they can do that exponentially better than any manned mission.

DragonCon with Aaron

Last Saturday, Aaron and I went down to DragonCon. It’s a science-fiction, fantasy and pop culture convention. As I grow older I don’t enjoy crowds nearly as much as I used to. So I have avoided these types of scenes for quite sometime. (I’ve been more claustrophobic at a movie theater than I’ve ever been in a cave.) However, a few years ago I got involved with an online community of skeptics, critical thinkers and rationalists. Piggybacked with all the actor autograph sessions, how to make cool costume classes and Dungeons and Dragons game sessions they a have a science and skepticism track too. This is only the second year for it and I wanted to get a chance to meet and talk with some of the folks I’ve been emailing, blog commenting, facebooking, listen to their podcasts and otherwise internet stalking for the last several years. So I braved the crowds and the chaos and Aaron and I went down.

I could only manage to squeeze in one day of the lectures so we were running back and forth to make sure that we saw the ones I wanted but I also had to make sure that Aaron didn’t feel like I was forcing him to sit through something he felt was boring. So I had to throw in several hours of shopping for costumes and looking at mangas and comic books. That was actually very fun too, but I was pleasantly surprised that Aaron had such a good time hanging out with me at the skeptical events and lectures.

The first lecture that we attended was Seth Shostak from the SETI institute. I’ve been listening to his podcast, Are We Alone for a few years. I’ve seen him on Colbert Report and so I knew that he’d be entertaining. Seth did a great job of explaining the “real” search for aliens and really showed that science and reality can but just if not even more interesting than the science fiction being show in neighboring rooms of the same hotel.

Next we saw Richard Saunders do a great little presentation targeted at teaching kids how to be critical thinkers. They did a live dowsing experiment and Aaron actually got to participate. I was very impressed with the relatively simple way that they showed the importance of making sure that any tests and experiments are blinded. Then they showed the added layer of making the test double blind. Saunders did a great job of making skepticism seem fun. All too often skeptics get portrayed as being cynics. Saunders and everybody else did a great job of debunking that notion.

Between lectures I was able to talk to the folks at the Skeptics Guide to the Universe. I would have loved to have stayed through Sunday to have seen their live taping of their podcast but I just couldn’t fit it into my already hectic schedule. I thanked them for saving me from talk radio. I like listening to news and information rather than just listing to music while I work and years ago their podcast was one of the first that I found to fill the void after I started boycotting the noise, illogic and repetition coming from talk radio.

The last lecture before we heeded home was a panel discussion With Seth Shostak, Joe Nichol, and Phil Plait that was moderated by Pamela Gay. Each panelist talked for about ten minutes about their own area of expertise and then opened the floor for questions. The questions were the most enjoyable part of the discussion. A few folks from the regular DragonCon crowd had wandered in and I’m not sure it was exactly what they expected. The phrase “alien hunter” was in the lecture description. All the members of the panel did a great job of explaining that it’s not that we don’t believe, belief has nothing to do with it. We just haven’t seen enough evidence to convince us that flying saucers are real.

Shostak made the comparison of aliens visiting Earth to Spaniards visiting America. 50 years after the Columbus everybody in America had mounds of evidence that Spaniards were here. It’s been 50 years since the first flying saucer and alien abduction stories jumping into the culture. Why don’t we have a comparable body of evidence? I thought the analogy was perfect and actually rather funny.

I knew that I would enjoy the skeptic events, but I was again, really surprised how much Aaron enjoyed them. Victoria and I have always been science geeks. We hardly watch any TV and the shows the kids really like are educational stuff on PBS. We check out Nova videos from the library. Even the few fiction series that we watch have a high level of science and rationality to them. I guess I shouldn’t have been too surprised that Aaron would enjoy it. After all he’s been hanging out with me for the last 15 years. I guess I just didn’t realize that so much was rubbing off.

My Review of Death from the Skies

I’ve always been a fan of science fiction. I particularly like stories where the science is as correct as possible. Don’t get me wrong, Star Wars was fun but it’s hardly scientifically plausible. The best you could call it would be science fantasy. My favorite science fiction author is Arthur C. Clarke. Clarke’s stories are rooted in hard science. In his stories you understood the rules. He didn’t defy the laws of physics to tell his story. He worked with them. Rather than being a limitation his strict philosophy made the stories easier to understand and added much more depth than if he had just invented magical ideas like warp drive or light sabers to tell his story. I’ve heard some friends criticize Clarke saying that the science got in the way of the story. I couldn’t disagree more strongly. In Clarke’s stories the story was just a way to express his love of science. With Clarke the science was the ultimate goal.
I’ve just finished reading another book that reminded me a lot of Clarke because of the strict adherence to real science. Death from the Skies by Phil Plait Ph.D is not even disguised as a fiction book. Phil is a real astronomer and the proprietor of one of my favorite blogs, badastronomy. The book is a real science book. Phil goes chapter by chapter to describe the myriad of ways that the universe is out to destroy us and he does not miss a single detail.
The thing that made me think of Clarke as I read it was the interesting vehicle he used to introduce each new concept. At the beginning of each chapter Phil adds a three or four page fictional story of the world as we know it coming to an end. Each story is different from the next and unrelated to the previous. In one life on Earth is destroyed by a solar flare. In another it’s aliens. In another it’s a gamma-ray burster. It was really a fun way to grab your interest and keep you reading through the rest of the details.
Phil is a great writer. His funny personality and childlike love of astronomy comes across on every page. Nowhere does the book become tedious.
In spite of the doom and gloom title this is a very upbeat and positive book. Yes all of the dangerous events described in the book are theoretically possible, however most are extremely improbably. And the most probable scenarios may even be preventable and he goes into great detail how we could do it. You won't finish this book and be afraid to go outside. On the contrary, I felt even more of a desire to go outside, stare at the stars and ponder the possibilities.
I really enjoyed this book. If you’re considering picking up a science fiction book please consider Death from the Skies. No question the science will be better and you’ll be educated and entertained as well.

Please also check of Phil's blog.

Look Up

túrána hott kurdís by hasta la otra méxico! from Till Credner on Vimeo.

Clarke

As a prepubescent, teen age boy I developed an affinity for science-fiction. I think it's some kind of nerd right of passage. I found out pretty quickly that I preferred novels that stick to plausible science rather than the more fantasy and magic based stories. So when I first started reading the works of Arthur C. Clarke I was hooked. His stories explored the fringes of our knowledge but were always based actual laws of physics. The idea that Clarke's spaceships, space elevators, worlds, and aliens were technically plausible was a mind expanding concept.
I was hooked. In a few years I'd read every book by Clarke that I could find. 2001, Childhood's End, Rendezvous with Rama, The Fountains of Paradise, etc, etc. I also found that he would write short stories for a science fiction magazine so I got a subscription and began checking out every back issue I could find. I also followed Clarke's research on science. There was a PBS show called Arthur C. Clarke's universe. I eagerly awaited every episode.
The world lost a true visionary today. Clarke's love of science left permanent impacts on our planet. I will do my best to assure that his impact is not forgotten. Victoria and I read books every night to the kids. We're expanded out of some of the typical children's books and they've taken it pretty well. Last week we finished the Andromeda Strain and this week we're reading the Black Hole. I'm going to suggest we add a few Clarke books in for the kids next. Perhaps Rendezvous with Rama.

More on Podcasts

My mother-in-law gave me a cool little MP3 player for Christmas. Thank you, Sue. Since I've given up talk radio I've been listening to a lot of books on tape and podcasts for the past year. Without an MP3 player I've just been setting up my laptop at work and listening that way. With my new player however, I can listen much more than I used to. I can take it on my walks on my lunch hour; I can listen in the car; and I don't have to pause it while I walk back and forth to the printer and the break room. You get the idea.
I've found that there are a bunch of books that I can download directly from the library in MP3. That's been a great resource. I recently listened to Thoreau’s Walden. The irony of listening to Walden on an MP3 player while I stare at a drafting program while designing a fiber optic based high speed data circuit for American Express was not lost. It actually helped me stay sane during the process.
There are several weekly podcast that I eagerly await the next episode so I can download and learn more. Lately my new favorite is Astronomy Cast. Each episode is remarkably simple yet very intriguing. It's just the host, Fraser Cain, the publisher of Universe Today talking with an astronomy professor, Dr. Pamela Gay. Fraser typically steers the conversation by asking tough questions and then just let's Pamela give a very thorough answer. I'm sure Fraser actually has much more knowledge on the subject than he let's on to. But he plays the role of an amateur very well. His questions and responses are right in line with what an average college student might ask on each subject. Listening to Astronomy Cast is very much like sitting in an ASTR 101 class and just listening to that one guy who likes to ask all the questions that you'd have asked. I'd recommend it to anyone as a companion to an astronomy class or just if you think astronomy is cool and would like to know a little more. Fraser lives in Canada so it's kinda funny to hear the way he pronounces "about". Being from the South, I'm sure he'd get a kick out of how I pronounce some words too.
SETI has a very interesting podcast that I also enjoy. It's very professionally mixed and edited and has the feel of an PBS documentary. They explore much more than the typical astronomy topics. Many of their episodes detail the scientific method and how we've learned what we know about the universe.
My old standby is The Skeptic's Guide to the Universe. Dr. Steven Novella hosts a well informed group of "skeptical rouges" on discussions of current events. Whether it's UFOs over Texas, ghosts in gas stations or the latest panic about Autism, I've really grow to trust the fact based, logical advice given on this podcast.
Recently I've also been downloading podcasts that have been reference on NPR. Electrons to Enlightenment explores the intersection of science and theology. It's only a four part series but I'd love to see it expanded into a weekly podcast.
Speaking of Faith is a program that my mother-in-law recommended because of a program they did on Mormonism. I downloaded that episode and several others. I'll review them more in detail after I've listened to a few more episodes.
I'd like to find more podcast out there that explore religion, science and politics as well as the complex interplay of the three. With all of this very intriguing material now filling my MP3 player I don't see how I could ever find the time to listen to the monotony of talk radio again even if I wanted to. Given the choice between learning something new about our universe like how we're finding extra-solar planets or just hearing some pundit recycle Clinton jokes, I don't have to think very long to figure out which would be a better use of my time.

Fantasy Prone Personality

A few months ago I was surfing around on the Coast to Coast AM website. It’s great entertainment. You know the routine, Ghost pictures, alien autopsies, mummified mermaids. I thought it was a kind of funny that there were very few kooky ideas that didn’t make it onto the site.
I also checked a few of the external links from the site. If I was at a ghost hunting site they would have links to Bigfoot sites. The Bigfoot sites would have links to alien abduction site and 9-11 conspiracy sites. It was almost as if in order to believe in ghosts you had to accept the whole gambit of weird ideas. It’s very rare that I would find somebody who believed one woo-woo idea and rejected the rest.
I read a paper written by a neurologist that described something called the Fantasy Prone Personality (FPP). The idea is that when we were children there is part of our brain that creates fantasies. Perhaps the rest of our brain vetting out if our fantasies are real or not teaches us rationality. Perhaps this is the source of creativity in our brains. At any case most of us outgrow this belief in fantasy as a child. But to varying degrees many of us do not.
Dr. Novella points out that people with FPP are more susceptible to hypnosis and have a strong desire to believe things without evidence. I think this is exactly why so many of these kooky ideas seem to be joined at the hip.
What brought this up is a local talk radio show that a friend of the family has been doing for a few years. I heard about The Dr. Chris Green Show a couple a years ago and just recently decided to listen to it. Dr. Chris seems to be suffering from FPP. He believes that the entirety of mainstream medicine is a global conspiracy. He recommended that a woman with ovarian cancer come in to his office for a homeopathic detox rather than get a biopsy. On September 11th his whole show was pretty much and “amen” to Alex Jones’ 9-11 conspiracy theories. Well today he made the claim that Autism is a side-effect of Irritable Bowel Syndrome which is caused by the MMR vaccine. If I didn’t know better I’d just laugh and accept that this is parody and satire. It isn’t.
I suppose that listening to things like this can be intriguing. I personally am much more intrigued by reality. Yesterday I watched Monster of the Milky Way: A Super-massive Black Hole. Chris can keep all his woo-woo doctrines. I’m much more fascinated by these types of factual tales.

A nice rest from our labors.

The kids spent the night at various friends and Grandparents' houses so Victoria and I had a rare chance to sleep in for a couple extra hours. After we woke up and read a couple chapters in our books we gathered up Rachel and headed to Granny and Grandpa's house.
We spent a couple hours just relaxing in front of a "Dirty Jobs" marathon before we found a great program on the History Channel based on the textbooks that I used for my college astronomy classes. If you get a chance to see it The Universe is a great program. It is about as up to date as you can get, including dark matter, dark energy and even a detailed section on the demotion of Pluto from a planet to a trans-Neptunian object. I highly recommend it.
After an hour of so of this Aaron, Noah and I ran over to Boat Rock for a couple of hours. In 1988 Shortly after I'd purchased my first pair of rock climbing shoes I drove over to Boat Rock with a friend and Easy Crack (5.8) was one of the first true crack climbs that I ever climbed. Granted the route is only about 20' tall but it'll always hold special memories for me. So I was particularly thrilled that Aaron was able to move through the route today, without a rope and in amazingly good form. He actually climbed the route 4 times. The first two times I was a very overly protective father/spotter. The last two times I was able to relax a little bit more and got a few pictures and even a nice little video of the event.

Google Sky

In case there has ever been any doubt I must confess that I am a complete and total geek. I also really love astronomy. For about 4 years now I have been trying to justify buying a 14 inch Newtonian reflector telescope. Well it looks like the guys at Google Earth have saved me the trouble. The latest version of GoogleEarth v4.2 gives you the ability to "turn the cameras around" and look out at the stars. Phil Plait has a great review of the program on his site badastronomy.com. I'd love to blog about it more but this typing is getting in the way of me looking at some really cool images of the heavens.

Massive Parallel Processing

Astronomy has always been a love of mine. I just enjoy being able to look up in the sky and understand what I see. Then in college I took several astronomy courses and really enjoyed them. I never had any inclination to be a professional astronomer. I’m not good enough at math to even consider it. However, I love to help out in the little ways that I can.
Several years ago I got involved with the SETI@home project. The gist of this project is that there are radio telescopes all over the world gathering terabytes of information everyday but they don’t have nearly enough computer resources to analyze the data. Somebody came up with the idea of massive parallel processing in order to solve this issue. The idea was that thousands of people leave their computers on constantly and the processor is busy drawing pretty lines and other things while the screen saver runs. Why not have the screen saver actual process data? So they started the program and thousands of people downloaded a packet of data to analyze and in return the got a cool screen saver that actual accomplished something more than just drawing pictures. SETI@home was used in the search for extra-solar planets and was very successful. I have no way of knowing if any of the data that went through my computer was directly involved but that’s not the point. I was actually assisting real astronomers with cutting edge research.
Thanks to a blog that I frequent daily I found out about another similar site. www.galaxyzoo.org is soliciting assistance to analyze the thousands of new galaxies that are being discovered with Hubble and ground based telescopes. The difference here is that they need human assistance and not just computer time. There are many programs that can assist in classifying galaxies but there with the current technology there is still no substitute for the human eye. Go to the site and they will give you a quick training course to see how well you can identify the different types of galaxies. After the training they give you a short quiz. If you test high enough on the quiz you are qualified to start evaluating slides of actual galaxies that have only recently been discovered. I got a 14/15 on the test and Victoria scored a 12/15 so we both are now being astronomy geeks during the time that we would normally blow on Sudoku or Solitaire. I found that it was quite addicting and had to force myself to stop before it got too late last night.
I think what appeals to me most about this is the spirit of cooperation that permeates the process. Rather than having one, all powerful, super computer doing this work we have thousands of real people investing their own time and energy. I think that in the long run this is how most, if not all, of the worlds problems will be solved. It’s the small steps taken by individual people that add up to make large differences in the world.
If you’re interested please give it a shot. And hats of to Phil Plaite, the Bad Astronomer, for bringing this to my attention.

Seeking Inspriration

My recent ponderings on religion and politics has left be rather saddened. Feeling a need to escape to something more uplifting I have returned to topic of research that has always left be with a profound sense of awe and wonder, astronomy.
Currently I have checked out several books, DVDs and books on tape on the subject. At Ray's suggestion I have just about everything I can find by Brian Greene including
The fabric of the cosmos : space, time, and the texture of reality on CD and in print and The Elegant Universe : superstrings, hidden dimensions, and the quest for the ultimate theory in book and DVD. For about a month now I've been working on Is Pluto a planet?: a historical journey through the solar system by David A. Weintraub. I've also been reading The Varieties of Scientific Experience: a personal view of the search for God by Carl Sagan as I find the time. All of these have been very enjoyable even when they frequently test my ability to comprehend. However, the greatest source of joy came from another DVD.
I had a particularly disappointing morning. A situation at church resulted in a decision I had made being overruled without even given a consultation in favor of what I believe to be simply hypocritical obedience to the fourth commandment. Rather than just sit and stew over it I went to the library and picked up Carl Sagan's Cosmos on DVD. They just got a copy of the newly remastered original series that was run on PBS in the early 80s. Victoria and I sat down and watched the first 3 episodes back to back. I will likely watch the rest in similar fashion. Many of Sagan's descriptions and examples had me literally in tears because they were so profound.
I first watched this series when it originally aired with my father. I remember then walking away from the shows and just wanting to look up and gaze at the stars. Sagan has a certain manner about him when he describes and explains science. No matter how old he is he seems like a 5-year old boy telling you about the fascinating things that he found at the local pond. He never seemed to loose that sense of wonder and admiration for all of nature. And he had an incredible way of inspiring the same wonder in me.
In books of religion or politics they seem to be a list of answers. Basically these are our interpretation of what the truth is. There doesn't seem to be any room to ask questions. The only questions permitted are simply "how are you going to change your life to fall in line?". Science on the other hand seems to be fascinated with the questions, particularly the questions for which we still don't know the answers. In many other subjects this admission of your own ignorance would be a source of distrust and cause a loss of faith. For me at least these unanswered questions inspire and prompt me to personally strive for greater understanding. Whether in print or on video few have inspired me more than Carl Sagan. I never seem to grow tired of reading his work.
I find it ironic that in the past few years I have gained so much comfort and peace and had my spirituality increased by a self described agnostic. Religious faithful are quick to shun intellectuals, scientists, agnostics and atheists as arrogant and evil. I have never felt this from Dr. Sagan. Quite the contrary, his naturalistic explanations of the cosmos have more humility than anything I have ever heard from the pulpit.
My brother is very fond of putting things to the "fruits test". Based on the scriptures that say "by their fruits you shall know them". Sagan passes the fruits test with flying colors. Whether he's teaching about humility, stewardship, or how to love your fellow man he consistently showed us all that there is a better way. Thanks to him I will always look at this pale blue dot that we live on and the whole of the cosmos with a much more profound reverence.
I have heard that there is a toy store near that campus of Cornell University that sells individual pale blue marbles. And that if you drive just a mile of so away to Carl's grave you'll find and abundance of those marbles, each one placed on the headstone as a silent thank you for the impact that Carl had on that person's life. I would like to add two marbles to that pile, one for myself and one for my father who was also inspired by Carl and taught me to never stop asking questions.

Pale Blue Dot

Lately I have been particilarly inspired by the writing and philosophy of this man. What I have posted here is his comments on this photo of Earth taken by Voyager I in 1990 as it left our solar system on its journey to deep space.

Reflections on a Mote of Dust
-- Carl Sagan (1934-1996)

We succeeded in taking that picture [from deep space], and, if you look at it, you see a dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever lived, lived out their lives. The aggregate of all our joys and sufferings, thousands of confident religions, ideologies and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilizations, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every hopeful child, every mother and father, every 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.

The earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that in glory and in triumph they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of the dot on scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner of the dot. How frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the universe, are challenged by this point of pale light.

Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity -- in all this vastness -- there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. It is up to us. It's been said that astronomy is a humbling, and I might add, a character-building experience. To my mind, there is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly and compassionately with one another and to preserve and cherish that pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.

Excerpted from a commencement address delivered May 11, 1996. Dr. Sagan's book Pale Blue Dot expands on these ideas.

Communion with the Infinite

Friday night I was out camping about 50 miles southeast of Atlanta. The lack of any nearby big cities made for a very impressive night sky. While most of the scouts and parents were busy trying to make the biggest fire possible a few of them noticed the sky and stopped to spend a little time with me looking through binoculars at the wonders above us. Even these few soon got a little bored at just staring at the sky. I was soon left alone to gaze into the heavens at my own speed.
Wanting to take advantage of the evening I tried to find a few celestial objects besides the typical, Orion, Ursa Major and Ursa Minor. With my binoculars held steady by leaning against a tree I looked to the northwest and found the sideways M that identifies Cassiopeia. From there I looked a little to the west to find the constellation Andromeda. Just above the trees I found the couple of stars that form a very narrow V. Just to the right of that V should be the Andromeda Galaxy. I focused my binoculars and then shielded my eyes to prevent any stray light from entering. After a few minutes of patiently staring my eyes adjusted and the hazy light slowly reveled its spiral shape. Andromeda Galaxy is over 3 million light years away and it is one of the closest galaxies to our own Milky Way. The photons that were entering my binoculars were sent on their way 3 million years ago. I was literally seeing this distant galaxy how it appeared 3 million years ago. I was literally gazing into the past.
David O McKay defines spirituality as "..communion with the infinite." I'm sure that most people would interpret this with closing one's eyes and bowing your head. I find the same level of spirituality when I open my eyes and look up.